PiRate Ratings College Basketball — Tuesday, March 14, 2023

Home	Visitor	Spread
Texas A&M-CC	SE Missouri St.	4.3
Michigan	Toledo	7.2
Rutgers	Hofstra	9.1
UAB	Southern Miss.	7.9
Liberty	Villanova	1.8
Vanderbilt	Yale	2.9
Mississippi St.	Pittsburgh	1.8
Wisconsin	Bradley	4.5
Colorado	Seton Hall	3.3
Washington St.	Eastern Washington	9.7

PiRate Ratings College Basketball–Wednesday, February 15, 2023

Home	Visitor	Spread
Albany	UMBC	-6.6
Belmont	Evansville	16.6
Binghamton	NJIT	3.6
Bradley	Missouri St.	8.9
Bryant	UMass Lowell	1.3
Cal Baptist	Seattle	0.4
Cal Poly	Cal St. Bakersfield	1.7
Campbell	Charleston Southern	5.2
Clemson	Florida St.	10.2
Colgate	Army	10.8
Colorado St.	Boise St.	-4.8
Duquesne	Saint Joseph’s	6.8
East Carolina	Cincinnati	-8.9
Florida	Mississippi	9.0
Fordham	St. Bonaventure	3.6
Fresno St.	San DIego St.	-9.5
Gardner-Webb	Winthrop	7.5
George Washington	George Mason	-1.4
Georgia Tech	Virginia Tech	-6.7
Grand Canyon	UT-Rio Grande Valley	12.1
Holy Cross	Boston U.	-1.9
Illinois Chicago	Indiana St.	-9.3
Illinois St.	Murray St.	0.5
Iowa St.	TCU	2.8
La Salle	Richmond	-1.3
Lehigh	Navy	-2.6
Louisville	Virginia	-16.8
Loyola (MD)	Lafayette	-1.7
Marquette	Xavier	4.2
Mississippi St.	Kentucky	2.1
Northern Iowa	Drake	-6.3
Northwestern	Indiana	-1.0
Oakland	IUPUI	15.1
Presbyterian	High Point	1.0
Rhode Island	VCU	-6.7
Saint Louis	Davidson	5.6
Sam Houston	UT Arlington	14.5
Samford	UNC Greensboro	-0.1
Stephen F Austin	Tarleton St.	6.1
Stetson	Florida Gulf Coast	2.1
Tennessee	Alabama	1.1
Texas A&M	Arkansas	0.9
The Citadel	Furman	-13.4
Tulsa	South Florida	-4.2
UC Davis	Cal St. Northridge	11.4
UC Riverside	Long Beach St.	1.7
UC San Diego	Cal St. Fullerton	-5.3
UC Santa Barbara	UC Irvine	1.3
USC Upstate	Longwood	-3.9
Vermont	New Hampshire	11.1
VMI	Chattanooga	-8.9
Washington	Oregon	-3.3
Western Carolina	East Tennessee St.	2.4
Wofford	Mercer	3.5

PiRate Ratings Bracketology

Date	2/13/2023
Seed	Team	Team	Team	Team	Team	Team
1	Alabama	Houston	Purdue	Kansas
2	Texas	Arizona	UCLA	Baylor
3	Tennessee	Xavier	Virginia	Marquette
4	Kansas St.	Iowa St.	Connecticut	Gonzaga
5	Indiana	Saint Mary’s	TCU	Miami (Fla)
6	San Diego St.	Illinois	Creighton	Rutgers
7	Missouri	Duke	Michigan St.	Iowa
8	Maryland	Providence	North Carolina St.	Auburn
9	West Virginia	Northwestern	Florida Atlantic	Arkansas
10	Boise St.	Oklahoma St.	Nevada	Pittsburgh
11	North Carolina	New Mexico	Memphis	USC	Texas A&M	Mississippi St.
12	Charleston	Oral Roberts	Southern Miss.	Liberty
13	VCU	Toledo	Drake	Utah Valley
14	UCSB	Yale	Furman	Colgate
15	Rider	E. Washington	Vermont	Youngstown St.
16	UNC Asheville	Northwestern St.	Morehead St.	Alcorn St.	Howard	Fairleigh Dickinson

Last 4 Byes: Nevada, Pittsburgh, North Carolina, Pittsburgh

Last 4 In: Memphis, USC, Texas A&M, Mississippi St.

First 4 Out: Kentucky, Wisconsin, Utah St., Oregon

Next 4 Out: Virginia Tech, Seton Hall, Arizona St., Wake Forest

PiRate Ratings College Basketball–Wednesday, February 8, 2023

Home	Visitor	Spread
Alabama	Florida	10.7
Albany	Bryant	-8.3
Army	Loyola (MD)	8.8
Baylor	Oklahoma	9.1
Boston U.	American	-0.3
Campbell	High Point	5.5
Charleston	UNC Wilmington	8.2
Chattanooga	The Citadel	10.9
Colgate	Lehigh	10.5
Delaware	Drexel	1.1
Duquesne	George Mason	4.3
Evansville	Northern Iowa	-9.6
Florida St.	Syracuse	-2.6
Fordham	Massachusetts	3.6
George Washington	Richmond	-1.6
Georgia Tech	Notre Dame	1.5
Grand Canyon	New Mexico St.	6.6
Hartford	Central Connecticut St.	-4.6
Houston	Tulsa	27.8
Illinois St.	Bradley	-7.9
Indiana St.	Valparaiso	12.2
Longwood	Presbyterian	12.9
Loyola (Chi)	Saint Joseph’s	1.4
Maine	Vermont	-4.9
Mercer	Samford	-2.3
Michigan	Nebraska	7.7
Mississippi St.	LSU	9.4
Missouri St.	Belmont	1.0
Navy	Bucknell	8.2
New Hampshire	Binghamton	5.3
North Carolina A&T	Elon	4.7
Northeastern	Hofstra	-7.6
Oklahoma St.	Texas Tech	6.3
Penn St.	Wisconsin	4.5
Providence	Georgetown	16.2
Seattle	Utah Tech	5.9
Seton Hall	Creighton	-2.2
SMU	Temple	-1.9
South Florida	Memphis	-6.4
Southern Illinois	Illinois Chicago	12.6
St. Bonaventure	La Salle	7.1
Stony Brook	Monmouth	6.0
Towson	Hampton	16.5
UMBC	NJIT	8.8
UNC Asheville	Winthrop	6.2
USC Upstate	Charleston Southern	2.0
Utah St.	San DIego St.	0.9
Utah Valley	Cal Baptist	7.7
Vanderbilt	Tennessee	-11.9
Villanova	DePaul	8.9
Virginia Tech	Boston College	13.1
VMI	Furman	-14.1
West Virginia	Iowa St.	3.1
Wichita St.	Central Florida	-1.2
Wofford	Western Carolina	4.4
Wright St.	IUPUI	18.0
Wyoming	UNLV	-2.6

PiRate Ratings Bracketology

Date	2/6/2023
Seed	Team	Team	Team	Team	Team	Team
1	Houston	Alabama	Purdue	Texas
2	Tennessee	Kansas	Arizona	UCLA
3	Baylor	Xavier	Iowa St.	Marquette
4	Kansas St.	Connecticut	Virginia	Saint Mary’s
5	Gonzaga	TCU	Indiana	Rutgers
6	San Diego St.	Miami (Fla)	Illinois	Duke
7	Creighton	Providence	Auburn	Iowa
8	Florida Atlantic	Maryland	New Mexico	West Virginia
9	Missouri	North Carolina St.	Arkansas	USC
10	Boise St.	Michigan St.	Nevada	Kentucky
11	Oklahoma St.	North Carolina	Northwestern	Memphis	Pittsburgh	Clemson
12	Oral Roberts	Liberty	Southern Miss.	VCU
13	Hofstra	Utah Valley	Drake	Akron
14	UC Santa Barbara	Princeton	Furman	Colgate
15	Rider	E. Washington	Youngstown St.	Vermont
16	Radford	Northwestern St.	Morehead St.	MD Eastern Shore	Southern	Fairleigh Dickinson

Last 4 Byes

Nevada, Kentucky, Oklahoma State, North Carolina

Last 4 In

Northwestern, Memphis, Pittsburgh, Clemson

First 4 Out

Utah St., Seton Hall, Texas A&M, Wisconsin

Next 4 Out

Mississippi St., Florida, Virginia Tech, Oregon

PiRate Ratings Bracketology

Date	1/6/2023
Seed	Team	Team	Team	Team	Team	Team
1	Kansas	Purdue	Houston	Arizona
2	Tennessee	Alabama	UCLA	Connecticut
3	Texas	Arkansas	Gonzaga	Virginia
4	Baylor	Xavier	Ohio St.	Duke
5	Iowa St.	Kansas St.	Indiana	Miami (Fla)
6	Wisconsin	TCU	San Diego St.	West Virginia
7	North Carolina	Marquette	Rutgers	Missouri
8	Kentucky	Providence	Virginia Tech	Auburn
9	New Mexico	Saint Mary’s	Illinois	Creighton
10	Memphis	Michigan St.	Utah	Florida Atlantic
11	Charleston	Maryland	Pittsburgh	North Carolina St.	Mississippi St.	Arizona St.
12	Iona	Kent St.	Dayton	Utah St.
13	Yale	Oral Roberts	Liberty	Grand Canyon
14	U Mass Lowell	Bradley	Georgia Southern	UC-Irvine
15	Furman	Colgate	Montana St.	Youngstown St.
16	SIU Edwardsville	Longwood	Grambling	Texas A&M CC	Norfolk St.	Fairleigh Dickinson

Last Four Byes: Memphis, Michigan St., Utah, Maryland

Last Four In: Pittsburgh, North Carolina St., Mississippi St., Arizona St.

First Four Out: Oklahoma St., Penn St., Texas Tech, LSU

Next Four Out: Northwestern, Clemson, Oklahoma, Wake Forest

PiRate Picks — October 6, 2022

After coming back down to Earth last week with a 2-5 record against the spread, our seasonal record now stands at 18-10. That’s still abnormally high. Let’s hope we can get back on the winning side this week with seven selections, hoping to go 4-3 and be happy with a profit.

About 18 other games came within a point or two of being playable for us in our in-house method of picking games either against the spread, the total, or in creating a money line parlay where the odds are +120 or higher, preferably higher than +130 or +140.

Here are this week’s selections. Remember: We never wager real money on our selections, and we suggest you follow this lead.

Selection #1: Alabama and Texas A&M Over 51 1/2

First, we expect Bryce Young to be ready for this game, and he will only need a half or so of time he will be needed, as Alabama exacts some revenge against the Aggies. We chose to take the Over here, because ‘Bama could cover the total by themselves. We aren’t saying that a 52-0 game is in the offing, but 41-14 would be realistic.

Selection #2: Georgia Southern and Georgia St. Under 67 1/2

Both of these teams can put points on the scoreboard and score 35 points against a defense the caliber of their opponent this week, but this heated rivalry game is liable to have added defensive stops. Thus, we think the total is a little too high. We think this game could be 31-28, as high as 35-28, and we still win at 35-31. As long as this game doesn’t go to overtime, we think this is our top play of the week.

Selection #3: Army and Wake Forest Under 66 1/2

Our thinking here is that Army will try to reduce this game to a minimum of plays, and Wake Forest is coming off consecutive big games. Army’s offense isn’t assessing the real estate like it has in recent years, so scoring 20 points is not automatic, as they could only manage 14 against a weaker Georgia State defense last week. Wake Forest gave up 25 points to a Vanderbilt team that is somewhat comparable offensively to Army’s offensive abilities, and the Demon Deacons put up a strong defensive effort last week. We see this game as a 35-14, and 45-21 still wins this one.

Selection #4: Arkansas + 9 1/2 vs. Mississippi State

It is not in our DNA to play an underdog at 9 1/2 points, as 10 1/2 gives us so much better odds for the money. And, we know that teams that play Alabama frequently show the effects of the pasting they received in the next game.

Our internal game projection makes this spread playable for us, as we see this as almost a tossup and only give the Bulldogs the edge due to home field advantage. We don’t see State winning by more than a touchdown, if they win at all.

Selection #5: Money Line Parlay at +144.92

Notre Dame over BYU

Utah over UCLA

We wanted to find a way to get the Utes into our selections this week, and this appears to be the best possible play. After dropping the opener to Florida, the Utes have begun to look like the class of the Pac-12. As for the Notre Dame-BYU game, it is our belief that Notre Dame’s game with Marshall was a wake up call for the Irish. Looking at how close they came to winning at Ohio State compared to how the Buckeyes have fared since, we believe Notre Dame is sitting on their best game of the year this week. This is a neutral site game in Las Vegas, and it could be one of the more exciting TV games. But, we think the outcome is not all that much in doubt.

Selection #6: Money Line Parlay at +148.05

Nevada over Colorado St.

Tulane over East Carolina

These two games are simply a matter of our thinking that the ML is too low for the favorites, and thus, it gives us an inflated potential payout for playing the two favorites.

Money Line Parlay at +202.93

Oklahoma St. over Texas Tech

Kentucky over South Carolina

North Carolina St. over Florida St.

Similar to the #6 selection, our beliefs that these three favorites will win, while not as strong as the two-gamer above, still remains strong enough to make it playable at better than 2-1 odds.

PiRate Picks For September 9-10, 2022

Last week, the most important part of our PiRate Picks publication was telling you that a broken clock is still correct twice a day. Please remember this, because we have experienced our broken clock accuracy up front this year. For the second week in a row, our selections went 3-0 to give us a 6-0 record to start the season. We know there are about 150-200 new visitors to this site since the 2021-22 College Football National Championship. Get this and get it good–we are not svengali’s. We are not Billy Walters. We aren’t even Brent Musberger and his incredible cast of handicappers. What are we? Really lucky and not much more than that.

Every week, we preface our selections by urging (begging) you not to wager real currency on the selections you read on this site. We know that there are a considerable number of professional speculators in the Nevada gold mines. We don’t have to tell you what to do with your occupation. It’s Joe Tackletrap in Wichita Falls, Texas, who makes $40,000 a year working himself silly that can ill afford to lose $500 that we have concerns about losing $500 because he wagered $100 each on five selections and lost them all, as he saw his mortgage payment money taken away.

Last week, we casually mentioned that there were some people in Nevada that we had information that they were following this site. Wow! We heard from six different people, two of whom represent a consortium of others, telling us they follow this site. And, they were not all from Las Vegas. We have to give some love to the biggest little city in America–Reno. There’s somebody there that sent us a little note.

For one paragraph, let’s pretend that we really did speculate these first two weeks of the football season, wagering $100 ($110) on margins and totals and $100 on the money line parlay. With the 6-0 record, including a parlay that paid back $241.77, our pretend starting bank account of $1,000 would now be worth $1,641.77. Making a 64% profit in two weeks in real life would quickly lead us to cash out and play no more games. That would be our Holiday Fund for this year.

What are the chances that our picks will be perfect again this week? The prior best first three week start we have ever had was a 9-3-1 start to the 2008 season. In most years, September is our worst month, with a big turnaround in October. Thus, we still do not have much confidence in our September picks. It’s merely the law of averages giving us a positive outlier.

Now that we have adequately warned you, we present our picks for this week. We are going with five selections.

Selection #1: Missouri and Kansas State UNDER 56 1/2

Our belief here is that the Wildcats will play a bit conservatively in the first half trying to keep the ball away from the Tiger offense, as Coach Chris Kleiman is a defense first leader. Missouri scored 52 points against a weak Louisiana Tech defense, and our belief is that the totals line might be a tad too high due to this. KSU’s defense pitched a shutout over FCS South Dakota. The Coyotes are not the top team in the Mount Rushmore state, but their offense is consistent. We see this game as a 28-20 win for the Wildcats. That gives us an extra touchdown to be wrong and still be right.

Selection #2: Iowa and Iowa State OVER 39 1/2

Iowa failed to reach the end zone against South Dakota State, winning 7-3 on a field goal and two safeties. The public looked at a Big Ten team’s offense failing to score on an FCS opponent and didn’t realize two important factors. First, South Dakota State is probably better than 60-75 FBS teams. Second, a college football team improves the most during a season in the practices between game one and game two. You can bet that this week in Iowa City, the offensive units in Hawkeye Land have had just about enough of hearing how lame they were in the opener. Over in Ames, Iowa State’s offense is far superior to its defense. Giving up 10 points to SEMO is nothing like Iowa’s holding SDSU to 3. SEMO is a mediocre Ohio Valley Conference team. Iowa will unleash its offense this week and top 20 points. Our hope is that Iowa State will respond in kind and make this a 24-21 game, topping 39 1/2 points.

Selection #3: Florida and Kentucky OVER 52 1/2

Florida came through for us last week, winning as an underdog when we believed the wrong team was favored. Kentucky overcame a slow start and eventually slaughtered a decent but not spectacular Miami of Ohio team. We believe that the Florida team that almost beat Alabama in 2021 before the team quit on former coach Dan Mullen has returned. If they could score 29 on Alabama last year and 29 on a tough Utah defense in week one, the Gators should put the chomp on Kentucky’s defense for more than 35 points. Can Kentucky’s offense produce 17 points or more? We think they Wildcats will top 20 points, and thus we believe the total in this game will top 56.

Selection #4: Arizona +11 1/2 vs. Mississippi State

This game is a tad different from how we normally play home underdogs. We tend to like our home dogs to get 1 to 7 points. We are making an exception here because it is our belief that few too people saw how the Wildcats went to San Diego State on the Christening of their new stadium and spoiled the party for the home team. We have been keeping our eyes on Coach Jedd Fisch since his arrival in Tucson. It is our beliefe that ‘Zona may have found their football equivalent of Lute Olson. His pedigree is about as incredible as a long-time assistant coach can own. Going up against a Mike Leach-coached team, this late night desert dogfight is going to give us reason to brew an evening pot of coffee. This could be the most entertaining game of Week Two, and we expect the home team to be in it for the entire 60 minutes. What’s great about this selection is that the superior SEC is having to play at the Pac-12 opponent’s home field rather than watch the Pac-12 team make the 2,000+ mile trip to the Southeast. Mississippi State could win this game 31-21, 34-24, 38-28, 35-24, 38-27 and still not cover. We tend to believe that this game will be a 3 to 7 point game in either direction.

Selection #5: Money Line Parlay at +172.97

Central Florida over Louisville

Arkansas over South Carolina

Florida over Kentucky

Louisville looked terrible in a blowout loss at Syracuse and did not look ready to play. Coach Scott Satterfield is sitting on a scorching hot seat, as he has had UL detractors since his hiring. At the same time, Gus Malzahn has quickly become a favored coach in Orlando, and Central Florida looks like a real contender for the American Athletic Conference Championship. In addition, UCF has had this game circled on their schedule and calendar. UL won this game on a pick six last year. The Cardinals are headed to an ambush in Orlando.

The Arkansas-South Carolina game should be quite interesting as two very good SEC teams face off in Fayetteville. We were a bit concerned with Spencer Rattler’s performance against Georgia State, as it was a little too similar to the performances he turned in at Oklahoma, which cost him his starting spot. Arkansas has a much better pass rush and secondary than Georgia State, and their offense at times pushed Cincinnati’s defense around. We see Pig Sooey winning by 10-14 points if not more.

Kentucky has defeated Florida twice in four years, after going mutiple decades without a win over the Gators. Billy Napier has quickly become a favorite in the Swamp almost on par with Steve Spurrier. He probably is the most like former Gator coaches Ray Graves and Doug Dickey than Spurrier or any coaches since. The Gators will be prepared and ready to play every week. Napier is part of both the Nick Saben and Dabo Swinney coaching trees. He knows how to run a program, and his year at Louisiana proved it. Kentucky and coach Mark Stoops are not exactly chopped liver. The Wildcats have a potent team with an NFL prospect under center. Will Levis could be a top three pick in the 2023 NFL Draft. Kentucky could be the second best team in the SEC East, but they could be the third or fourth best too. We believe that the Gators will come into this game not resting on their laurels after pulling off the biggest win of Week One. Napier won’t let them get swollen heads. We’re going with Florida in a thriller, and we see the Gators winning 38-28.

PiRate Ratings College Basketball–Tuesday, February 1, 2022

Home	Visitors	Spread
Virginia	Boston College	7.9
Connecticut	Creighton	10.2
Iowa St.	Kansas	-3.7
Maryland	Michigan St.	-4.2
Tennessee	Texas A&M	11.5
Siena	Canisius	3.3
Duquesne	Richmond	-6.8
St. Bonaventure	Davidson	1.5
Western Michigan	Northern Illinois	0.3
Ohio	Ball St.	12.6
Eastern Michigan	Toledo	-11.6
Central Michigan	Bowling Green	-6.4
Miami (O)	Kent St.	0.8
Mississippi St.	South Carolina	7.7
Northwestern	Rutgers	6.5
Louisville	North Carolina	-3.9
Georgetown	Seton Hall	-8.3
Auburn	Alabama	7.1
Texas Tech	Texas	4.6
St. John’s	Providence	0.8
LSU	Mississippi	15.0
Wichita St.	Tulsa	8.4
Utah St.	Air Force	16.5
Michigan	Nebraska	15.0
Stanford	California	5.6
UC Riverside	UC Davis	7.0
UNLV	Nevada	4.2
San Jose St.	Fresno St.	-12.0

PiRate Ratings Bracketology

Date	1/31/2022
Seed	Team	Team	Team	Team	Team	Team
1	Gonzaga	Auburn	Arizona	Baylor
2	Kentucky	Purdue	Houston	Villanova
3	Kansas	UCLA	Texas Tech	Duke
4	Tennessee	LSU	Illinois	Michigan St.
5	Connecticiut	Texas	Ohio St.	Wisconsin
6	Alabama	Xavier	Iowa St.	Iowa
7	Saint Mary’s	USC	Marquette	Indiana
8	Providence	Loyola (Chi.)	Boise St.	BYU
9	North Carolina	Oklahoma	Wake Forest	Miami (Fla.)
10	Colorado St.	TCU	Arkansas	Wyoming
11	Michigan	Oregon	Murray St.	Davidson
12	Chattanooga	Iona	Florida	San Francisco	Notre Dame	San Diego St.
13	Toledo	Vermont	South Dakota St.	North Texas
14	Oakland	Wagner	Seattle	Jacksonville St.
15	Weber St.	UNC-Wilmington	Navy	Yale
16	Hawaii	Appalachian St.	Longwood	Norfolk St.	New Orleans	Southern

Best of the Rest

69	Creighton
70	Seton Hall
71	Mississippi St.
72	West Virginia
73	Belmont
74	SMU
75	Washington St.
76	Virginia Tech