PiRate Ratings College Basketball–Tuesday, February 21, 2023

Home	Visitor	Spread
Air Force	Fresno St.	2.5
Arkansas	Georgia	14.2
Ball St.	Kent St.	-4.9
Buffalo	Central Michigan	9.8
Creighton	Marquette	3.6
Eastern Michigan	Western Michigan	1.6
Kansas St.	Baylor	0.3
Miami (O)	Bowling Green	1.4
Michigan St.	Indiana	0.5
Missouri	Mississippi St.	1.7
Missouri St.	Murray St.	5.3
Nevada	San Jose St.	10.0
Ohio	Northern Illinois	9.4
Oklahoma	Texas Tech	2.2
Pittsburgh	Georgia Tech	11.8
Richmond	Saint Louis	-1.5
Robert Morris	Youngstown St.	-5.4
Saint Joseph’s	VCU	-5.1
San Diego St.	Colorado St.	11.8
Texas	Iowa St.	5.7
Texas A&M	Tennessee	-3.2
Toledo	Akron	2.7
Tulsa	East Carolina	-2.1
Virginia Tech	Miami (Fla)	-0.4
Wyoming	Utah St.	-6.7
Xavier	Villanova	8.5

PiRate Ratings College Basketball–Tuesday, February 14, 2023

Home	Visitor	Spread
Auburn	Missouri	5.7
Ball St.	Northern Illinois	8.0
Bowling Green	Central Michigan	5.3
DePaul	St. John’s	-1.8
Duke	Notre Dame	14.2
Eastern Michigan	Akron	-9.4
Georgia	LSU	3.7
Massachusetts	Loyola (Chi)	5.0
New Mexico	Wyoming	11.6
Ohio	Buffalo	4.1
Oklahoma	Kansas St.	-1.6
Oklahoma St.	Kansas	-0.7
Penn St.	Illinois	-1.7
Pittsburgh	Boston College	11.9
Providence	Creighton	-1.2
Rutgers	Nebraska	12.5
Seton Hall	Georgetown	13.6
South Carolina	Vanderbilt	-6.1
Syracuse	North Carolina St.	-1.8
Toledo	Miami (O)	14.9
UNLV	San Jose St.	6.8
Utah St.	Air Force	13.4
Valparaiso	Southern Illinois	-5.7
Villanova	Butler	6.9
Western Michigan	Kent St.	-13.0
Wisconsin	Michigan	1.1

PiRate Ratings College Basketball–Wednesday, February 1, 2023

Home	Visitor	Spread
American	Bucknell	7.6
Auburn	Georgia	11.4
Boston U.	Holy Cross	7.8
Bradley	Southern Illinois	5.3
Bryant	Maine	7.1
Cal Baptist	Southern Utah	-0.4
Campbell	USC Upstate	4.4
Charleston Southern	Gardner-Webb	-3.2
Cincinnati	Tulsa	16.3
Drake	Northern Iowa	9.1
East Tennessee St.	Wofford	-0.6
Evansville	Indiana St.	-12.3
Florida	Tennessee	-7.0
Furman	Chattanooga	7.0
George Mason	Massachusetts	3.8
Georgetown	Creighton	-14.0
Illinois St.	Illinois Chicago	5.1
La Salle	George Washington	-0.3
Lafayette	Navy	0.5
Lehigh	Army	1.1
Louisville	Georgia Tech	-3.2
Marquette	Villanova	10.6
Missouri	LSU	10.0
Missouri St.	Valparaiso	10.0
Murray St.	Belmont	0.1
New Mexico St.	Stephen F. Austin	-1.2
NJIT	New Hampshire	-0.7
North Carolina	Pittsburgh	8.3
North Carolina St.	Florida St.	11.8
Oklahoma	Oklahoma St.	1.9
Presbyterian	Radford	-7.9
Purdue	Penn St.	9.6
Richmond	St. Bonaventure	5.0
Rutgers	Minnesota	17.2
Saint Joseph’s	Rhode Island	4.1
Seattle	Abilene Christian	8.0
South Florida	East Carolina	7.0
St. John’s	Seton Hall	0.8
Tulane	SMU	9.4
UMass Lowell	Albany	13.9
UMBC	Binghamton	8.8
UT Arlington	Tarleton St.	-2.9
UT-Rio Grande Valley	Sam Houston	-12.2
Utah St.	New Mexico	3.4
Western Carolina	Samford	-3.4
Winthrop	Longwood	-2.3
Xavier	Providence	4.9

PiRate Ratings College Basketball–Tuesday, January 24, 2023

Home	Visitor	Spread
Akron	Miami (O)	13.8
Arkansas	LSU	12.4
Ball St.	Buffalo	4.6
Boise St.	Fresno St.	13.9
Central Michigan	Bowling Green	0.4
Clemson	Georgia Tech	10.3
Drake	Indiana St.	5.8
East Carolina	Tulsa	4.8
Florida St.	Miami (Fla)	-5.2
Georgetown	DePaul	-1.9
Illinois	Ohio St.	2.2
Iowa St.	Kansas St.	5.2
La Salle	Davidson	-3.5
Mississippi	Missouri	0.4
Missouri St.	Illinois Chicago	11.6
North Carolina St.	Notre Dame	12.4
Northern Illinois	Kent St.	-13.0
Ohio	Western Michigan	10.2
Rutgers	Penn St.	6.1
San Jose St.	Air Force	3.1
Southern Illinois	Murray St.	6.1
Syracuse	North Carolina	-3.5
TCU	Oklahoma	7.0
Texas	Oklahoma St.	7.5
Toledo	Eastern Michigan	19.1
UNLV	Wyoming	7.8
Vanderbilt	Kentucky	-2.5

PiRate Ratings College Basketball–Wednesday, January 18. 2023

Home	Visitor	Spread
American	Lafayette	5.1
Army	Bucknell	5.6
California	Oregon	-7.4
Campbell	Radford	-1.7
Central Arkansas	North Alabama	0.3
Charleston Southern	UNC Asheville	-2.3
Chattanooga	Furman	1.2
Colorado St.	San Diego St	-4.9
DePaul	Xavier	-9.1
Drake	Missouri St.	6.2
East Tennessee St.	Samford	-3.7
Grand Canyon	Utah Tech	10.9
High Point	Winthrop	1.3
Holy Cross	Colgate	-12.4
Indiana St.	Bradley	0.1
Longwood	Gardner Webb	5.1
Louisville	Pittsburgh	-10.7
Loyola (Chi)	Saint Louis	-7.3
LSU	Auburn	-5.1
Marquette	Providence	5.7
Missouri	Arkansas	-1.0
Morgan St.	Hartford	15.6
Navy	Boston U.	2.8
Nebraska	Ohio St.	-5.5
Northern Iowa	Illinois St.	6.5
Oklahoma St.	Oklahoma	2.7
Seton Hall	Connecticut	-4.8
South Florida	Cincinnati	-3.9
St. Bonaventure	Duquesne	-0.4
Temple	East Carolina	7.7
Texas A&M	Florida	2.0
Tulsa	SMU	-1.4
UMass Lowell	UMBC	5.9
USC Upstate	Presbyterian	5.5
Utah Valley	Abilene Christian	9.1
Virginia	Virginia Tech	6.4
West Virginia	TCU	1.8
Western Carolina	Wofford	-0.7

PiRate Ratings College Basketball–Wednesday, January 11, 2023

Home	Visitor	Spread
Arkansas	Alabama	0.0
Army	American	-0.7
Bradley	Evansville	19.5
Bryant	Albany	10.3
Bucknell	Loyola (MD)	7.7
Cal Baptist	Utah Valley	-1.9
Cal St. Bakersfield	UC Santa Barbara	-7.7
Cal St. Northridge	UC Davis	-5.9
Central Florida	Memphis	1.4
Charleston Southern	High Point	-0.4
Chattanooga	Western Carolina	8.2
Cincinnati	East Carolina	11.5
Clemson	Louisville	17.9
Colgate	Boston U.	10.3
Davidson	Richmond	0.6
Delaware	Towson	-1.9
Duke	Pittsburgh	8.3
Elon	North Carolina A&T	-2.8
Florida Int’l.	Florida Atlantic	-12.6
Georgia	Mississippi St.	-1.7
Hofstra	Monmouth	20.1
Houston	South Florida	24.5
Illinois St.	Missouri St.	-4.5
Indiana St.	Southern Illinois	4.2
Lehigh	Holy Cross	5.0
Maine	New Hampshire	2.4
Marquette	Connecticut	-2.3
Massachusetts	La Salle	8.6
Mercer	Furman	-5.0
Miami (Fla)	Boston College	13.5
Navy	Lafayette	6.1
NJIT	Binghamton	2.8
North Texas	Louisiana Tech	8.5
Northwestern	Rutgers	-1.1
Penn St.	Indiana	-1.5
Presbyterian	Gardner Webb	-6.8
Rhode Island	St. Bonaventure	0.7
Rice	Middle Tennessee	0.0
Saint Joseph’s	Duquesne	-3.0
Saint Louis	George Mason	5.9
Samford	Wofford	3.0
SMU	Tulane	-3.0
Syracuse	Virginia Tech	-1.9
Tarleton St.	Chicago St.	10.4
Texas	TCU	6.9
Texas A&M	Missouri	0.4
The Citadel	East Tennessee St.	0.1
UAB	Western Kentucky	11.1
UC Irvine	Cal St. Fullerton	9.3
UC San Diego	UC Riverside	-4.8
UMass Lowell	Vermont	2.5
UNC Wilmington	Charleston	-0.4
UNLV	Boise St.	0.8
USC Upstate	Campbell	1.4
UT Rio Grande Valley	Abilene Christian	-5.0
UTEP	UTSA	9.5
VMI	UNC Greensboro	-8.4
Wake Forest	Florida St.	7.9
Washington St.	California	13.0
West Virginia	Baylor	2.1
William & Mary	Hampton	7.9
Winthrop	Radford	-1.2
Xavier	Creighton	3.5

PiRate Ratings College Basketball–Saturday, January 7, 2023

Home	Visitor	Spread
Abilene Christian	Southern Utah	0.3
Alabama	Kentucky	6.8
Alcorn St.	Alabama A&M	5.6
Arizona	Washington St.	13.1
Arkansas Pine Bluff	Texas Southern	-5.3
Auburn	Arkansas	-0.7
Austin Peay	Central Arkansas	8.6
Baylor	Kansas St.	5.0
Belmont	Missouri St.	0.6
Boise St.	Utah St.	-0.4
Boston College	Duke	-10.3
Bowling Green	Ohio	-3.4
Bradley	Valparaiso	16.0
Brown	Dartmouth	8.2
Buffalo	Northern Illinois	9.7
Cal Poly	UC Santa Barbara	-7.1
Cal St. Fullerton	Hawaii	-2.0
Charleston	Delaware	11.6
Chattanooga	VMI	14.4
Cleveland St.	Green Bay	15.1
Colorado	Oregon St.	16.0
Colorado St.	Fresno St.	4.6
Columbia	Penn	-8.7
Connecticut	Creighton	7.9
Coppin St.	South Carolina St.	6.5
Cornell	Princeton	2.1
Drake	Murray St.	7.3
Drexel	Monmouth	15.4
East Tennessee St.	Furman	-5.9
Eastern Michigan	Central Michigan	-1.2
Eastern Washington	Sacramento St.	5.5
Evansville	Illinois St.	-2.8
Fairleigh Dickinson	Long Island	11.4
Florida	Georgia	8.7
Florida Atlantic	Charlotte	9.1
Florida Gulf Coast	North Florida	8.8
Florida Int’l.	UAB	-13.8
Florida St.	Georgia Tech	0.6
Fordham	Saint Joseph’s	4.2
Gardner Webb	Radford	4.6
George Mason	Loyola (Chi.)	7.1
George Washington	Massachusetts	-1.6
Georgia Southern	Old Dominion	0.3
Grambling	Bethune Cookman	12.7
Hampton	Northeastern	-4.2
Howard	Delaware St.	11.6
Idaho	Portland St.	-1.3
Illinois	Wisconsin	5.2
Incarnate Word	Texas A&M CC	-8.9
Indiana St.	Illinois Chicago	12.5
Jackson St.	Alabama St.	5.7
Jacksonville	Lipscomb	4.1
Jacksonville St.	Bellarmine	0.9
James Madison	Appalachian St.	12.7
La Salle	Rhode Island	0.5
Lindenwood	Tennessee St.	-1.0
Little Rock	Southeast Missouri St.	-2.7
Longwood	Winthrop	9.4
Louisiana	Georgia St.	8.5
Louisiana Monroe	Southern Miss.	-7.1
Louisiana Tech	UTEP	6.6
Louisville	Wake Forest	-8.8
Loyola Marymount	San Francisco	2.1
Marquette	Georgetown	18.5
Marshall	Coastal Carolina	11.7
McNeese St.	Texas A&M-Commerce	0.2
Memphis	East Carolina	15.2
Merrimack	St. Francis NY	3.4
Miami (O)	Kent St.	-13.2
Michigan St.	Michigan	3.6
Middle Tennessee	North Texas	-3.6
Minnesota	Nebraska	-4.1
Mississippi St.	Mississippi	4.9
Mississippi Valley St.	Prairie View	-7.9
Missouri	Vanderbilt	9.5
Morehead St.	Eastern Illinois	8.2
Morgan St.	North Carolina Central	-0.9
New Mexico	UNLV	4.9
New Mexico St.	Cal Baptist	4.5
New Orleans	Houston Christian	4.2
Norfolk St.	Maryland Eastern Shore	7.5
Norhtern Iowa	Southern Illinois	-1.9
North Alabama	Stetson	-2.2
North Carolina	Notre Dame	13.5
North Carolina A&T	UNC Wilmington	-7.0
North Dakota	South Dakota St.	-5.4
North Dakota St.	South Dakota	2.5
Northern Arizona	Montana St.	-5.9
Northern Colorado	Montana	-1.4
Northwestern St.	Nicholls St.	-0.7
Oklahoma St.	Texas	-0.6
Oral Roberts	UMKC	14.2
Pepperdine	Pacific	6.6
Pittsburgh	Clemson	1.4
Presbyterian	Charleston Southern	1.5
Providence	St. John’s	7.0
Purdue Ft. Wayne	Milwaukee	7.6
Queens	Kennesaw St.	3.5
Richmond	Duquesne	4.5
Sacred Heart	Hartford	11.5
Saint Louis	St. Bonaventure	8.1
Saint Mary’s	Portland	15.3
Sam Houston St.	Tarleton St.	10.2
San Diego	BYU	-4.7
San Jose St.	Nevada	-2.2
Santa Clara	Gonzaga	-8.0
Seton Hall	Butler	3.8
South Alabama	Texas St.	4.7
South Carolina	Tennessee	-20.4
Southeastern Louisiana	Lamar	13.6
Southern	Florida A&M	14.4
Southern Indiana	SIU Edwardsville	-1.2
St. Thomas	Omaha	8.2
Stephen F. Austin	Grand Canyon	-1.4
Stonehill	Central Connecticut St.	3.2
Stony Brook	Towson	-6.7
TCU	Iowa St.	3.9
Temple	Tulane	0.7
Texas A&M	LSU	3.4
Texas Tech	Oklahoma	-16.8
Troy	Arkansas St.	12.4
UC Davis	Cal St. Bakersfield	7.4
UC Irvine	Long Beach St.	8.3
UC Riverside	Cal St. Northridge	10.4
UNC Asheville	Campbell	5.7
UNC Greensboro	Samford	4.9
USC Upstate	High Point	-0.9
UT Arlington	Seattle	-3.7
UT Martin	Tennessee Tech	5.6
UT Rio Grande Valley	Utah Valley	-10.2
Utah	Oregon	5.5
UTSA	Western Kentucky	-7.0
VCU	Davidson	4.1
Villanova	Xavier	-1.5
Virginia	Syracuse	11.5
Virginia Tech	North Carolina St.	3.1
Wagner	St. Francis PA	6.0
Weber St.	Idaho St.	6.0
West Virginia	Kansas	-1.4
Western Carolina	Mercer	-0.6
Western Illinois	Denver	1.6
William & Mary	Hofstra	-6.5
Wofford	The Citadel	9.0
Wyoming	San Diego St	-7.7
Yale	Harvard	10.6
Youngstown St.	IUPUI	23.0

PiRate Picks — October 27, 2022

Due to overwhelming new scheduling issues, this feature is truncated this week.

Selection #1: 3, team 10-point Teaser (-130)

Miami (O) + 1 1/2 vs. Akron

Penn St. + 25 1/2 vs. Ohio St.

Virginia + 11 1/2 vs. Miami (Fla)

Selection #2: Money Line Parlay @ +169.53

South Carolina over Missouri

SMU over Tulsa

Selection #3: Money Line Parlay @ +166.75

North Carolina over Pittsburgh

Wake Forest over Louisville

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–Sunday, February 20, 2022

Home	Visitors	Spread
Butler	Providence	-3.7
Wichita St.	Houston	-8.3
Wisconsin	Michigan	1.8
Maine	NJIT	-3.0
Detroit	Wright St.	0.6
Iona	Fairfield	11.2
Cincinnati	Temple	7.4
Central Florida	East Carolina	10.1
Milwaukee	Purdue Fort Wayne	-2.8
Northern Iowa	Missouri St.	-1.4
Marist	Quinnipiac	6.6
Siena	Saint Peter’s	-2.4
Manhattan	Rider	3.0
Fordham	George Mason	-3.2
SMU	Memphis	-0.1
Creighton	Marquette	0.2
Oakland	Northern Kentucky	6.9
Green Bay	Cleveland St.	-8.4
San Jose St.	New Mexico	-6.0
Hartford	Stony Brook	0.5
Loyola (MD)	Lehigh	5.0
Purdue	Rutgers	12.6
Bellarmine	Jacksonville St.	0.8
USC	Washington St.	5.0
Missouri	Mississippi St.	-5.9