March Madness - March 17

There probably aren't many worse times to start publishing my picks than March Madness. I'm currently in the middle of an eight-bet losing streak and haven't figured out the neutral courts at all. Throughout the regular season, I've had success picking mostly underdogs but since the conference tournaments started it's felt like spreads haven't really mattered; underdogs win outright, and favorites cover the spread. You just have to pick winners. It sounds easy, but I guess they call it March Madness for a reason. The best and worst thing about college basketball is how unpredictable it is. College kids turn the ball over, make stupid decisions, foul jump shooters, miss open looks, and everything in between. You can pretend to know what you're talking about, and I'm about to do exactly that, but sometimes it truly doesn't matter how correct your analysis is. Now, let's get to some picks.

San Diego State -2.0 vs. Creighton

I watched a lot of college basketball this year... A lot. Since football season ended, I watched at least part of a game almost every single day but I'm not sure I've watched San Diego State play more than a total of 40 minutes, I'm not a Mountain West basketball enthusiast. Creighton on the other hand, I've seen play plenty of times. Just last week Creighton made a nice run in the Big East tournament before falling in the championship game to Villanova. Greg McDermott's squad has struggled offensively; shooting the three inaccurately (30.7%) and turning the ball over a lot - not a recipe for success in March. The Blue Jays rely on getting to the rim to score making SDSU a tough draw for them. Senior Nathan Mensah has been excellent in the middle of the Aztec defense, averaging over two blocks per game, while Lamont Butler is an excellent perimeter defender. The two were selected to the Mountain West all-defensive team, resulting in one of the best defensive efficiencies in the country (86.0, 2nd per KenPom).

I like to look at tournament experience and overall maturity when picking these games, because younger teams tend to get rattled on the biggest stage in college basketball. Both teams made the tournament last year, but although Creighton made a run to the sweet sixteen last year, they only brought back 18% of minutes from last season. Ryan Hawkins is Creighton's most important player and is yet to see a March Madness game coming from D-II Northwest Missouri State. San Diego State, on the other hand, brings back over half their minutes from last year's team that went to the second round and has three seniors in the starting lineup. SDSU struggles to score at times, but Matt Bradley should be the best player on the court, so I like the Aztecs to cover the small spread and advance to the second round.

Ramblings from a Madman

Here's the part where I pretend like I know what I'm doing. When I was writing for QBList, I always made it a point to make at least three picks for each article, even when nothing jumped out at me, because I was getting paid and wanted to put in enough effort to make it worthwhile for the great people over there. Now that I'm doing my own thing I can decide how many picks I want to write up.

It really just boils down to some simple math. Assuming sportsbooks are good at their jobs (they are), each spread should realistically be a 50/50, but because the house always wins, they come with some odds attached and you typically win about 91 cents on the dollar. That means to achieve a positive expected value, you need roughly a 52.5% chance of winning your bet.

Ignoring the math, the lesson here is: don't make a pick just to make a pick. The best way to increase your earnings is to decrease your percentage of losses, not by increasing your total wins. I certainly have some leans tomorrow (UVM +5, Murray State -2, UConn -6.5), but I don't like them enough to give them out as plays, and I think knowing when to bet and when to lay off is important to be a good gambler.

Shoutout to everyone who read my debut? pilot? article, hopefully I can turn this into something and maybe even become a decent writer along the way.

-Jake