The Pi-Rate Ratings

December 29, 2022

PiRate Ratings College Basketball–Thursday, December 29, 2022

Filed under: College Basketball — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — piratings @ 9:56 am
Thursday, December 29, 2022
HomeVisitorSpread
BellarmineLiberty-6.5
ButlerProvidence1.8
Coastal CarolinaLouisiana-1.5
Cal PolyCal St. Northridge4.1
CaliforniaUtah-10.6
CharlestonHampton19.0
CharlotteMiddle Tennessee3.7
CincinnatiTulane6.6
CornellBinghamton14.8
Cal St. FullertonUC Santa Barbara-3.6
DelawareHofstra-0.9
DenverUMKC2.9
DePaulGeorgetown5.2
DetroitGreen Bay15.2
DrakeValparaiso15.4
DrexelElon12.4
E. IllinoisLindenwood3.4
Fairleigh DickinsonMerrimack4.1
FurmanVMI15.5
Georgia SouthernSouth Alabama-3.1
Gardner WebbCharleston Southern10.3
Georgia St.James Madison-8.8
Grand CanyonCal Baptist6.5
HowardLa Salle0.2
Idaho St.N. Arizona-0.7
IllinoisBethune Cookman28.6
Indiana St.Evansville13.3
Louisiana TechUTSA12.3
Long Beach St.UC San Diego9.4
Little RockUT Martin-1.4
Long IslandWagner-7.2
LongwoodHigh Point5.8
MarshallAppalachian St.10.3
MarylandUMBC19.4
MemphisSouth Florida16.0
MichiganCentral Michigan20.3
MontanaEastern Washington3.3
Montana St.Idaho10.9
Murray St.Southern Illinois-0.5
Northern KentuckyWright St.1.1
OmahaOral Roberts-11.5
NebraskaIowa-4.1
North TexasFlorida Atlantic0.4
NortheasternNorth Carolina A&T3.9
NorthwesternBrown16.0
OaklandMilwaukee-1.4
Ohio St.Alabama A&M27.4
Old DominionArkansas St.10.6
PacificBYU-7.4
Penn St.Delaware St.30.8
PortlandLoyola Marymount1.6
PresbyterianCampbell-2.8
PurdueFlorida A&M34.1
QueensAustin Peay6.3
Robert MorrisPurdue Ft. Wayne-2.8
South Dakota St.Western Illinois7.2
Sacred HeartStonehill3.8
Saint Mary’sSan Diego16.4
Santa ClaraSan Francisco0.7
USC UpstateWinthrop-1.9
Stephen F. AustinAbilene Christian3.0
SIU-EdwardsvilleTennessee Tech10.0
Southern IndianaSoutheast Missouri St.3.6
Southern Miss.Troy3.3
South DakotaSt. Thomas-2.1
St. Francis PACentral Connecticut2.7
StanfordColorado1.9
Tarleton St.UT Arlington7.5
Tennessee St.Morehead St.2.2
Texas St.Louisiana Monroe9.3
The CitadelChattanooga-6.7
UABUTEP15.8
UC RiversideCal St. Bakersfield10.0
UNC AshevilleRadford2.3
Utah TechUT Rio Grande Valley9.4
Utah ValleySam Houston-1.4
Western CarolinaUNC Greensboro-3.9
Western KentuckyRice5.5
Weber St.Northern Colorado2.9
WoffordETSU8.0
Youngstown St.Cleveland St.7.0

September 14, 2022

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.

January 27, 2022

PiRate Ratings College Basketball–Thursday, January 27, 2022

Filed under: College Basketball — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — piratings @ 3:00 am
HomeVisitorsSpread
NebraskaWisconsin-8.3
Florida Gulf CoastEastern Kentucky2.8
Appalachian St.Arkansas St.3.7
Tennessee TechMurray St.-12.7
MarshallMiddle Tennessee-0.6
WagnerSt. Francis (PA)14.8
Sacred HeartSt. Francis (NY)4.1
Fairleigh DickinsonMount St. Mary’s-5.2
Central ConnecticutLong Island-6.4
BryantMerrimack9.3
UNC AshevilleGardner-Webb1.4
LibertyNorth Alabama13.5
JacksonvilleLipscomb5.9
DetroitIllinois Chicago6.6
Robert MorrisMilwaukee0.2
Youngstown St.Green Bay7.9
Coastal CarolinaLittle Rock11.4
James MadisonDrexel1.8
CharlestonHofstra-2.4
UNC WilmingtonNortheastern1.9
TowsonDelaware6.7
ElonWilliam & Mary8.8
Louisiana TechRice9.3
StetsonBellarmine-2.8
Kennesaw St.Jacksonville St.-2.6
UL MonroeGeorgia Southern1.0
MinnesotaOhio St.-3.9
Northern IllinoisBall St.-0.9
Southern IllinoisLoyola (Chi.)-7.3
UTSAFlorida International-4.1
Southern Miss.North Texas-14.1
Northern ColoradoWeber St.-0.5
Houston BaptistNew Orleans-4.9
Chicago St.Utah Valley-15.2
North FloridaCentral Arkansas6.8
UT ArlingtonTexas St.-1.4
South AlabamaTroy5.7
LouisianaGeorgia St.3.6
OmahaOral Roberts-14.6
South DakotaNorth Dakota St.0.5
South Dakota St.North Dakota23.4
SIU EdwardsvilleTennessee St.4.6
Austin PeayBelmont-13.2
Northwestern St.Incarnate Word5.0
McNeese St.Nicholls St.-3.2
IowaPurdue-1.8
UCLACalifornia15.9
MemphisEast Carolina13.7
UC DavisCal St. Fullerton0.8
Southeast Missouri St.Morehead St.-7.2
UT MartinEastern Illinois11.1
Western KentuckyUAB-5.4
UTEPFlorida Atlantic0.6
MontanaIdaho14.0
Montana St.Eastern Washington6.2
SE LouisianaTexas A&M-CC1.2
DenverUMKC-1.3
UC IrvineCal St. Bakersfield10.0
UC San DiegoCal Poly5.8
UC RiversideLong Beach St.6.9
Portland St.Southern Utah-4.5
Sacramento St.Idaho St.6.5
PortlandPacific4.1
San FranciscoSaint Mary’s2.2
San DiegoPepperdine8.8
GonzagaLoyola Marymount26.3
USCStanford10.5
WashingtonColorado-2.4
Santa ClaraBYU-3.0
HawaiiCal St. Northridge13.1

January 6, 2022

PiRate Ratings College Basketball Spreads

Filed under: College Basketball — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — piratings @ 6:30 am

Thursday, January 6, 2022

HomeVisitorsSpread
Loyola (Chi.)San Francisco5.1
IndianaOhio St.0.6
IllinoisMaryland10.9
WisconsinIowa0.8
CincinnatiSMU1.0
ColoradoWashington St.-0.7
BYUPacific19.4
UtahWashington9.1
CaliforniaUSC-7.1

January 2, 2022

PiRate Ratings College Basketball Spreads

Sunday, January 2, 2022

HomeVisitorsSpread
Boston CollegeNorth Carolina-6.4
DaytonSt. Bonaventure0.5
NorthwesternMichigan St.-1.6
SMUCentral Florida0.7
St. LouisRichmond3.6
Rhode IslandLaSalle14.9
Penn St.Indiana-3.5
TempleHouston-15.7
Georgia TechLouisville-3.0
CaliforniaArizona St.1.5
NebraskaOhio St.-11.3

November 23, 2021

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 WinOpponent
Ball St.Buffalo
Georgia St.Troy
MemphisTulane

Odds:+150.77
Must WinOpponent
Central MichiganEastern Michigan
Old DominionCharlotte
UCLACalifornia
AlabamaAuburn

September 8, 2021

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 WinOpponent
VirginiaIllinois
RutgersSyracuse
MichiganWashington

Parlay 2

Odds:+180.56
Must WinOpponent
Mississippi St.North Carolina St.
TCUCalifornia

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

November 13, 2020

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

Filed under: College Football — Tags: , , , , , — piratings @ 6:02 pm

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

HomeVisitorsPiRateMeanBias
UCLACalifornia-4.0-5.6-6.3

February 27, 2020

PiRate Ratings College Basketball For February 27, 2020

Filed under: College Basketball — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — piratings @ 6:39 am

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.

 

 

 

January 26, 2020

PiRate Ratings College Basketball For January 26, 2020

Filed under: College Basketball — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — piratings @ 8:14 am

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.”

 

 

 

 

 

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