Editor’s Note: For almost three years now, Joe has been publishing picks here and back at All Things NIT, our former site. There have been moments of elation (the Nationals winning the 2019 World Series). There have been moments of frustration (the Dodgers’ 2020 NLCS comeback). Overall, the results have been positive, with an average return on investment, per pick, of 2% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 1,841 published picks, not including bets that remain pending, like futures. 2% doesn’t sound amazing, but relative to what else you get on the internet?
Use these picks at your own risk. Only you are responsible for any money you lose, and you should not bet more than you can afford to lose. If you have a gambling problem, get help.
Lines for these come from the Vegas consensus or the closest approximation available at the time picks are written, unless otherwise noted. KenPom is heavily used in making college basketball picks. ESPN’s SP+ is heavily used in making college football picks of all kinds, and FPI is used in making conference championship futures picks.
North Dakota @ Florida International
We’re 0-2-1 betting against FIU this year, which is cause for pause. If this were college football, we might lay off, but basketball’s simple enough mathematically that we trust KenPom to adjust to teams’ performance. Just because FIU’s been better than we’ve expected in those three games doesn’t mean they’ll be better today.
Pick: North Dakota to win +380. Low confidence.
Western Illinois @ Eastern Michigan
This is looking like the best Western Illinois team in a long time, following up that win at Nebraska with a split across DePaul and Northern Kentucky. Eastern Michigan also hung with Northern Kentucky, and wasn’t too far away from Indiana in their opener, but they’re just not on the level of the Leathernecks, which should negate the home-court advantage and put this slightly on the WIU side of a tossup.
Pick: Western Illinois to win +120. Low confidence.
Southern Miss vs. UNC-Wilmington
Southern Miss seems to finally be healthy. Rough start to the season, but they might have bottomed out.
Pick: Southern Miss to win +115. Low confidence.
Louisiana-Monroe @ Louisiana Tech
This is a longshot, but ULM plays some wild basketball. Aggressive on defense. Aggressive on offense. With Louisiana Tech potentially missing Isaiah Crawford, it’s not that hard to imagine a stunner in Ruston.
Pick: Louisiana-Monroe to win +800. Low confidence.
George Mason vs. South Dakota State
The Jacks are the better team, the Jacks have some home court advantage, if you’d been told a couple weeks ago that the Jacks couldn’t hang with Washington you wouldn’t have thought much of it. That doesn’t mean to think nothing of it, but it doesn’t mean something’s fundamentally wrong with these guys.
Pick: South Dakota State to win -230. Medium confidence.
