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Programming note: There will be more newsletters over the next two weeks to get you ready for March Madness.
College basketball player prop – The player points market has been sharper than I expected. Last week in 5-Nuggets, I wrote about over 15.5 points for Auburn big Johni Broome due to higher usage, and the market is 17.5 points today against Georgia.
However, the college basketball player points market is so large that you can still find value. Auburn’s Chad Baker-Mazara is a sweet shooting wing that also likes to pass. He has moved into Auburn’s starting line up the past four games and played more minutes.
Most likely, Baker-Mazara’s hot shooting played a role in his move into the starting line up. He has made 15 for 26 from three in the last nine games, an unsustainable 57.7% rate. Despite the hot shooting, he went under 13.5 points in five of those nine games.
There is value in Auburn’s Chad Baker, under 13.5 points, -125 at DraftKings (listed as Chad Baker instead of Chad Baker-Mazura, game against Georgia tips at 6:30pm Eastern).
Baseball season long bets – On an episode of the Unabated Podcast, pro bettor Jason Weingarten discussed all aspects of baseball betting.
For AL MVP, Jason likes Jose Ramirez of the Cleveland Guardians. First, he’s the best player on a team that might win the AL Central. Second, Ramirez projects to have the same statistics as Mike Trout. At +2500 at DraftKings, Jason see value in Jose Ramirez for AL MVP.
For team win totals, Jason notes that the Los Angeles Angels have no talent in the line up around Mike Trout. The pitching staff isn’t much better, and he likes under 72.5 wins for the Angels, -115 available at DraftKings.
Michigan football’s secret weapon – At the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, Eugene Shen, Senior Vice President of Football Analytics with the Washington Commanders noted how Michigan has used undergraduates in analytics. Shen himself helped organize this effort.
Among others, Shen pointed to the work of Arjun Menon and Tej Seth and noted how this program has become a pipeline to NFL jobs. Michigan went 15-0 and won the national title this past season.
Sports betting panel – Over a decade ago, I started messing with some math that had sports applications. If you would have told me that this would land me on a panel with Tim Donaghy, I would have laughed at you.
I’m not quite sure how this panel will go, but it should be interesting. I’m tasked with telling a story about the difficulties of sports betting on this panel at 2pm Eastern on Wednesday, March 14.
Football humor – Philadelphia center Jason Kelce retired this week, so let’s revisit the Sunday he jumped out of the suite in Buffalo. The story about meeting his wife the first time is hilarious.
Smarter sports betting in less than 5 minutes
These nuggets were sent to The Power Rank’s email newsletter. This is a free service that strives to be:
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Other emails offer analysis of college football and NFL games that founder Ed Feng has bet and a sample of predictions usually saved for paying members of The Power Rank. You’ll also get my March Madness cheat sheet that makes it drop dead easy to fill out your bracket.
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