PiRate Ratings College Basketball–Thursday, December 29, 2022

Thursday, December 29, 2022
Home	Visitor	Spread
Bellarmine	Liberty	-6.5
Butler	Providence	1.8
Coastal Carolina	Louisiana	-1.5
Cal Poly	Cal St. Northridge	4.1
California	Utah	-10.6
Charleston	Hampton	19.0
Charlotte	Middle Tennessee	3.7
Cincinnati	Tulane	6.6
Cornell	Binghamton	14.8
Cal St. Fullerton	UC Santa Barbara	-3.6
Delaware	Hofstra	-0.9
Denver	UMKC	2.9
DePaul	Georgetown	5.2
Detroit	Green Bay	15.2
Drake	Valparaiso	15.4
Drexel	Elon	12.4
E. Illinois	Lindenwood	3.4
Fairleigh Dickinson	Merrimack	4.1
Furman	VMI	15.5
Georgia Southern	South Alabama	-3.1
Gardner Webb	Charleston Southern	10.3
Georgia St.	James Madison	-8.8
Grand Canyon	Cal Baptist	6.5
Howard	La Salle	0.2
Idaho St.	N. Arizona	-0.7
Illinois	Bethune Cookman	28.6
Indiana St.	Evansville	13.3
Louisiana Tech	UTSA	12.3
Long Beach St.	UC San Diego	9.4
Little Rock	UT Martin	-1.4
Long Island	Wagner	-7.2
Longwood	High Point	5.8
Marshall	Appalachian St.	10.3
Maryland	UMBC	19.4
Memphis	South Florida	16.0
Michigan	Central Michigan	20.3
Montana	Eastern Washington	3.3
Montana St.	Idaho	10.9
Murray St.	Southern Illinois	-0.5
Northern Kentucky	Wright St.	1.1
Omaha	Oral Roberts	-11.5
Nebraska	Iowa	-4.1
North Texas	Florida Atlantic	0.4
Northeastern	North Carolina A&T	3.9
Northwestern	Brown	16.0
Oakland	Milwaukee	-1.4
Ohio St.	Alabama A&M	27.4
Old Dominion	Arkansas St.	10.6
Pacific	BYU	-7.4
Penn St.	Delaware St.	30.8
Portland	Loyola Marymount	1.6
Presbyterian	Campbell	-2.8
Purdue	Florida A&M	34.1
Queens	Austin Peay	6.3
Robert Morris	Purdue Ft. Wayne	-2.8
South Dakota St.	Western Illinois	7.2
Sacred Heart	Stonehill	3.8
Saint Mary’s	San Diego	16.4
Santa Clara	San Francisco	0.7
USC Upstate	Winthrop	-1.9
Stephen F. Austin	Abilene Christian	3.0
SIU-Edwardsville	Tennessee Tech	10.0
Southern Indiana	Southeast Missouri St.	3.6
Southern Miss.	Troy	3.3
South Dakota	St. Thomas	-2.1
St. Francis PA	Central Connecticut	2.7
Stanford	Colorado	1.9
Tarleton St.	UT Arlington	7.5
Tennessee St.	Morehead St.	2.2
Texas St.	Louisiana Monroe	9.3
The Citadel	Chattanooga	-6.7
UAB	UTEP	15.8
UC Riverside	Cal St. Bakersfield	10.0
UNC Asheville	Radford	2.3
Utah Tech	UT Rio Grande Valley	9.4
Utah Valley	Sam Houston	-1.4
Western Carolina	UNC Greensboro	-3.9
Western Kentucky	Rice	5.5
Weber St.	Northern Colorado	2.9
Wofford	ETSU	8.0
Youngstown St.	Cleveland St.	7.0

PiRate Picks For September 16-17, 2022

That broken clock finally failed to show the correct time on the PiRate Ship. Last week, our five picks came in at 1-4, dropping our profit for the season to $1,211.77 ($1,311.77 left in the imaginary account).

We’re back to where we normally are in September. Usually, when we have a bad week, our saving grace in the past has been Money Line Parlays playing at +140 or higher odds. We had a tough time finding one really good parlay this week. While we like odds in the range of +140 to +180, we couldn’t find the right number of games to make this range work out. We also don’t like to play more than three games in a parlay, so it came down to going with 3 at more than +200 or go to five bigger favorites to get to +155 and change.

We also tend to like to play an odd number of games to eliminate the .500 record that results in a small loss. Of course, when one of those selections is a parlay that pays different than the straight 11-10 odds, a .500 record could be a winning week if one of those wins is the parlay.

Our selections this week are all about the numbers more than the actual teams playing. Without further adieu, here are our selections for the week. Remember: We never wager real money on our picks, and we highly suggest that you follow our lead.

Selection 1: Wyoming +14 1/2 vs. Air Force

This is a nice rivalry game, and the last time the margin of this game exceeded 14 points was 2013. Wyoming’s schedule has been considerably stronger than Air Force’s, as Illinois and Tulsa are both stronger than Colorado. Craig Bohl teams tend to be stronger against the run than the pass, so this looks like a good play to be on the side where the top four margins by frequency come with it (3, 7, 10, and 14 points represent the final margin in 1/4 of all college football games).

Selection #2: Wyoming & Air Force Under 46 1/2

For the same reasons above, this game appeals to us for the total. We think this game is more like a 20-17 game, which falls well under 46 1/2 points.

Selection #3: Maryland -2 1/2 vs. SMU

The PiRates really prefer to go with underdogs that we believe should be favorites, but there were no short ‘dogs this week that really jumped off the page. We believe that Maryland is better than a touchdown stronger than SMU. Game outcomes of 1 and 2 points occur just 5.9% of the time, and that includes 5.9% of the time that the favorite and the underdog win by 1 or 2.

Selection #4: Northern Illinois -2 1/2 vs. Vanderbilt

Ditto the game above. Except, Vanderbilt exposed itself by showing its real weakness last week against Wake Forest. The Huskies were somewhat shocked by Tulsa in week one, but they should rebound in week two.

Selection #5: Nebraska and Oklahoma Under 66 1/2

What do you get when you combine a defensive genius head coach coaching in his third ever game against a big rival with a coach making his debut when a few days ago, he was an assistant coach? Usually, you get a hard-fought game that tends to be a little more defense-oriented. The Cornhuskers should play their best game of the season for interim coach Mickey Joseph, while the Sooners may play it a bit more conservatively. An OU win similar to last year’s game, which ended with 39 total points scored.

Selection #6: California and Notre Dame Over 40 1/2

Notre Dame last started a season 0-3 in 2007. Before Irish fans jump out of buildings, they were 0-2 in 2011 with a loss to a weak South Florida team and proceeded to win eight of their next nine games. Cal isn’t the best defensive team in the land, even though the Bears are only giving up 13.5 points per game so far. UC-Davis and UNLV are not offensive juggernauts.

If this game ends 21-20, it beats the total by a half-point. Notre Dame and Marshall combined for 47 points, and Cal’s offense is better than Marshall’s.

Selection #7: Money Line Parlay at +204.42

Penn State over Auburn

Texas A&M over Miami (Fla.)

North Carolina St. over Texas Tech

Auburn barely beat a mediocre San Jose State team last week. A weaker Penn State team than this year’s squad defeated a stronger Auburn team than this year’s squad last year.

If Texas A&M loses again this week, Jimbo Fisher might be sharing a beer with Scott Frost the following Saturday somewhere outside of a football stadium.

Texas Tech’s win over Houston is getting a lot more accolades than it probably should have gotten. N.C. State’s narrow escape over East Carolina probably got too much as well. This is still a Wolf Pack team capable of winning the ACC Title.

PiRate Ratings College Basketball–Thursday, January 27, 2022

Home	Visitors	Spread
Nebraska	Wisconsin	-8.3
Florida Gulf Coast	Eastern Kentucky	2.8
Appalachian St.	Arkansas St.	3.7
Tennessee Tech	Murray St.	-12.7
Marshall	Middle Tennessee	-0.6
Wagner	St. Francis (PA)	14.8
Sacred Heart	St. Francis (NY)	4.1
Fairleigh Dickinson	Mount St. Mary’s	-5.2
Central Connecticut	Long Island	-6.4
Bryant	Merrimack	9.3
UNC Asheville	Gardner-Webb	1.4
Liberty	North Alabama	13.5
Jacksonville	Lipscomb	5.9
Detroit	Illinois Chicago	6.6
Robert Morris	Milwaukee	0.2
Youngstown St.	Green Bay	7.9
Coastal Carolina	Little Rock	11.4
James Madison	Drexel	1.8
Charleston	Hofstra	-2.4
UNC Wilmington	Northeastern	1.9
Towson	Delaware	6.7
Elon	William & Mary	8.8
Louisiana Tech	Rice	9.3
Stetson	Bellarmine	-2.8
Kennesaw St.	Jacksonville St.	-2.6
UL Monroe	Georgia Southern	1.0
Minnesota	Ohio St.	-3.9
Northern Illinois	Ball St.	-0.9
Southern Illinois	Loyola (Chi.)	-7.3
UTSA	Florida International	-4.1
Southern Miss.	North Texas	-14.1
Northern Colorado	Weber St.	-0.5
Houston Baptist	New Orleans	-4.9
Chicago St.	Utah Valley	-15.2
North Florida	Central Arkansas	6.8
UT Arlington	Texas St.	-1.4
South Alabama	Troy	5.7
Louisiana	Georgia St.	3.6
Omaha	Oral Roberts	-14.6
South Dakota	North Dakota St.	0.5
South Dakota St.	North Dakota	23.4
SIU Edwardsville	Tennessee St.	4.6
Austin Peay	Belmont	-13.2
Northwestern St.	Incarnate Word	5.0
McNeese St.	Nicholls St.	-3.2
Iowa	Purdue	-1.8
UCLA	California	15.9
Memphis	East Carolina	13.7
UC Davis	Cal St. Fullerton	0.8
Southeast Missouri St.	Morehead St.	-7.2
UT Martin	Eastern Illinois	11.1
Western Kentucky	UAB	-5.4
UTEP	Florida Atlantic	0.6
Montana	Idaho	14.0
Montana St.	Eastern Washington	6.2
SE Louisiana	Texas A&M-CC	1.2
Denver	UMKC	-1.3
UC Irvine	Cal St. Bakersfield	10.0
UC San Diego	Cal Poly	5.8
UC Riverside	Long Beach St.	6.9
Portland St.	Southern Utah	-4.5
Sacramento St.	Idaho St.	6.5
Portland	Pacific	4.1
San Francisco	Saint Mary’s	2.2
San Diego	Pepperdine	8.8
Gonzaga	Loyola Marymount	26.3
USC	Stanford	10.5
Washington	Colorado	-2.4
Santa Clara	BYU	-3.0
Hawaii	Cal St. Northridge	13.1

PiRate Ratings College Basketball Spreads

Thursday, January 6, 2022

Home	Visitors	Spread
Loyola (Chi.)	San Francisco	5.1
Indiana	Ohio St.	0.6
Illinois	Maryland	10.9
Wisconsin	Iowa	0.8
Cincinnati	SMU	1.0
Colorado	Washington St.	-0.7
BYU	Pacific	19.4
Utah	Washington	9.1
California	USC	-7.1

PiRate Ratings College Basketball Spreads

Sunday, January 2, 2022

Home	Visitors	Spread
Boston College	North Carolina	-6.4
Dayton	St. Bonaventure	0.5
Northwestern	Michigan St.	-1.6
SMU	Central Florida	0.7
St. Louis	Richmond	3.6
Rhode Island	LaSalle	14.9
Penn St.	Indiana	-3.5
Temple	Houston	-15.7
Georgia Tech	Louisville	-3.0
California	Arizona St.	1.5
Nebraska	Ohio St.	-11.3

PiRate Picks–Thanksgiving Week

A Windfall!

It wasn’t the best ever for the PiRate Ratings, as we’ve had greater than 200% returns on investment in a handful of weeks in the last 17 years, but last week’s 171.2% ROI was our best in the last three years. We played six wagers last week, ranging from +159.65 to +360. We lost the +360, but we won the other five selections for an imaginary gain of $1,027.74 on an imaginary investment of $600.

Coming this late in the year, if we play a bit conservatively the rest of the year, we will be guaranteed of having our 5th winning season in the last 6 years and our 14th winning season in the 17 years we have been pretending to wager. For the season, our imaginary 54 wagers at $100 per game for $5,400 in imaginary currency has returned an imaginary $6,337.83, for a profit of $937.83, and a ROI of 17.4%. Hopefully, you have seen the word “imaginary” a few times to this point. We hope you get what we’re saying; we do not wager real money on these parlays.

We are issuing just two parlays this week. The odds were not what we hoped for, as too many games have very large Money Lines. Additionally, our plan is to play one, two, or three games in each parlay while receiving odds better than +120 and preferably better than +150. Having to ask four teams to win for us is basically one too many. Alas, we had to issue a 4-game parlay this week to bring the odds up above +150.

Here are the two parlays we have selected this week. If either one wins, we are guaranteed to have another winning week. If both win, we may retire for the season and enjoy our imaginary winnings. If neither win, we will have given back a little of our profits.

Odds:	+201.37
Must Win	Opponent
Ball St.	Buffalo
Georgia St.	Troy
Memphis	Tulane
Odds:	+150.77
Must Win	Opponent
Central Michigan	Eastern Michigan
Old Dominion	Charlotte
UCLA	California
Alabama	Auburn

PiRate Picks For September 9-13, 2021

Last week’s opening picks missed, as Virginia Tech made Sam Howell look like Thurston Howell. Duke then failed to show up against Charlotte, and poof, our two picks were destroyed. Such is life when you wager on parlays that return the odds we look for when we place our imaginary wagers.

We have two more picks returning some fat odds this week, and maybe we’ll get lucky and hit on one. We will also tell you a week 1 tip for the NFL. Although we are here just for Money Line Parlays this year, it doesn’t mean we cannot give out a little interesting information.

Here are our two Money Line Parlays for Week two of the college season. We will eventually pick some NFL games, but Week one is not the time and place for that.

Parlay 1

Odds:	+224
Must Win	Opponent
Virginia	Illinois
Rutgers	Syracuse
Michigan	Washington

Parlay 2

Odds:	+180.56
Must Win	Opponent
Mississippi St.	North Carolina St.
TCU	California

Here’s our tip for Week 1 of the NFL season. Underdogs of 1 to 3 points tend to win outright 50% of the time, but they also lose by less than 3 points another 8-10% of the time. That’s 58-60% success for wagering on 3-point Underdogs.

There are seven games as of this writing with a 3-point spread. The Dogs are:

Houston against Jacksonville

Arizona against Tennessee

Philadelphia against Atlanta

Indianapolis against Seattle

Cincinnati against Minnesota

Miami against New England

N.Y. Giants against Denver

Add On Game College Football — Sunday, November 15, 2020

Pirate Rating Spread For UCLA-California game added Friday, November 13 to be played Sunday, November 15.

Home	Visitors	PiRate	Mean	Bias
UCLA	California	-4.0	-5.6	-6.3

PiRate Ratings College Basketball For February 27, 2020

Thursday’s Games

 

Home	Visitor	Spread
Austin Peay	Morehead St.	12.3
Belmont	Tennessee Tech	21.1
Cal Poly	UC Irvine	-11.5
Cal St. Bakersfield	UT Rio Grande Valley	2.3
California	Colorado	-9.9
Canisius	Iona	1.7
Charleston	Delaware	4.7
Charleston Southern	Gardner-Webb	-2.2
Fairleigh Dickinson	Bryant	0.4
Florida Atlantic	UTSA	2.7
Florida Gulf Coast	Jacksonville	-0.2
Florida Intl.	North Texas	-2.7
Gonzaga	San Diego	26.3
Grand Canyon	New Mexico St.	-5.9
Green Bay	Youngstown St.	3.5
Hampton	Radford	-7.2
Hawaii	Cal St. Fullerton	7.9
High Point	UNC Asheville	-2.0
Hofstra	Towson	6.9
Idaho St.	Portland St.	-3.2
Illinois Chicago	Detroit	7.1
IUPUI	Oakland	-4.4
Kennesaw St.	Liberty	-23.0
Little Rock	UL Monroe	10.3
Long Island	Wagner	9.1
Loyola Marymount	Pacific	-1.4
Merrimack	Central Connecticut	16.0
Miami (O)	Central Michigan	-0.6
Michigan	Wisconsin	6.6
Milwaukee	Cleveland St.	6.2
Murray St.	Eastern Kentucky	12.5
Nebraska	Ohio St.	-9.8
Niagara	Saint Peter’s	-4.1
North Alabama	NJIT	4.1
North Dakota St.	South Dakota St.	2.2
Northeastern	James Madison	12.5
Northern Arizona	Montana	-0.7
Northern Colorado	Idaho	17.4
Northwestern	Illinois	-6.8
Oral Roberts	Western Illinois	15.1
Oregon	Oregon St.	10.4
Presbyterian	Longwood	0.1
Purdue	Indiana	4.7
Sacramento St.	Montana St.	4.3
Sacred Heart	St. Francis (NY)	9.9
San Francisco	Portland	15.8
Santa Clara	Saint Mary’s	-6.3
South Carolina Upstate	Winthrop	-9.7
Southeast Missouri	Eastern Illinois	-5.0
Southern Utah	Eastern Washington	2.2
St. Francis (PA)	Mount St. Mary’s	9.2
Stetson	North Florida	-5.6
Tennessee St.	Jacksonville St.	2.8
UAB	Marshall	0.7
UC Riverside	UC Santa Barbara	-0.5
UCLA	Arizona St.	0.6
UNC Wilmington	Drexel	-0.5
USC	Arizona	-3.9
UT Martin	SIU-Edwardsville	4.5
Western Kentucky	Louisiana Tech	0.1
Wichita St.	Temple	9.7

 

Key TV Games On Thursday

 

Time (EST)	Network	Home	Visitor
7:00 PM	ESPN2	Michigan	Wisconsin
7:00 PM	FS1	Purdue	Indiana
8:00 PM	ESPN+	Murray St.	Eastern Kentucky
9:00 PM	ESPN+	North Dakota St.	South Dakota St.
10:00 PM	ESPN	USC	Arizona
11:00 PM	Pac12	UCLA	Arizona St.

 

 

 

PiRate Ratings College Basketball For January 26, 2020

Sunday’s Games

Home	Visitor	Spread
California	Stanford	-8.5
Connecticut	Tulsa	4.3
Creighton	Xavier	6.2
Drake	Missouri St.	3.4
Fairfield	Canisius	1.5
Houston	South Florida	13.4
Indiana	Maryland	-0.6
Iona	Monmouth	0.6
Manhattan	Rider	-0.3
Minnesota	Michigan St.	-2.4
Northern Iowa	Loyola (Chi)	5.7
Northwestern	Ohio St.	-7.7
Oregon	UCLA	13.6
Saint Louis	Fordham	13.9
Saint Peter’s	Niagara	6.7
Siena	Quinnipiac	4.0
UNLV	San Diego St.	-9.1
Valparaiso	Evansville	10.0
Wake Forest	Virginia	-1.3

 

Saturday Was Upset City

There were more than two dozen upsets Saturday in Division 1 college basketball.  While your favorite team in a power conference may have won, and you’re thinking that you don’t remember many upsets, let us tell you that many of them occurred in the Mid-Major conferences.  Because most of the Mid-Major conferences will be one-bid leagues, and the conference tournament champion will be the representative in the Big Dance, our bracketology must undergo massive restructuring in the #13 through 16 seeds.

Thus, we will put out an update Bracketology later today, or basically as soon as we can clean up the mess and “un-muddle the water.”