Looking for smart sports betting action this weekend and for the Super Bowl? Your curated list of tips, analytics and humor.
College basketball player prop – North Carolina has struggled to a 13-9 record this season, and it gets even tougher on the road against very a strong Duke team. Duke excels on defense (see below), and the markets project about 67 points for North Carolina, much lower than their 74.0 average in conference play.
Point guard Elliot Cadeau has averaged 6.1 assists this season but only 5.7 in conference play. With fewer points for North Carolina, his assist projection should be even lower against Duke.
There is value in Elliot Cadeau under 6.5 assists, -152 at FanDuel. Stay tuned to this newsletter for college basketball player props through March Madness.
Super Bowl SGP – In last week’s 5-Nugget Saturday, we exploited the supposed negative correlation between two bets in the same game. A sportsbook assumes player that scores a touchdown should be less likely to go under his rushing yards prop.
However, this negative correlation probably does not hold for some players like Jalen Hurts. He will get his chances to score on a short touchdown on a tush push, and those opportunities have little relationship with his rushing total on other plays. The same game parlay (SGP) last week against Washington won.
The same ideas apply to the Super Bowl:
- Jalen Hurts anytime touchdown, -110.
- Jalen Hurts under 40.5 rushing yards, -100.
Assuming these legs were uncorrelated, the book should offer a price of +264. Instead, FanDuel offers a payout of +337, and there is value again in this Jalen Hurts SGP.
Tush push – Kansas City stopped Josh Allen and the tush push three times in the AFC Championship game. This means Chris Jones and company are ready to stuff Jalen Hurts in the Super Bowl, right?
Maybe not. NFL analyst Edward Egros poured through the data on “quarterback sneaks” this season. The Chiefs faced the most of these plays, and their only three stops came against Buffalo in the playoffs.
College basketball metrics – Duke has its usual crop of one and done freshmen. This includes probable number one NBA draft pick Cooper Flagg but also shooter Kon Knueppel and big Khaman Maluach.
Usually, a young and talented team thrives on offense but can’t play defense. However, this Duke team is better on defense (3rd) than offense (12th) in my adjusted points per possession. My numbers have Duke by 13.9 points over North Carolina tonight.
For a limited time, the college basketball rankings usually reserved for paying members of The Power Rank is available to the public.
Football humor – Patrick Mahomes: “Thank you, God!”
God: “You think I did this? You think I want to see you and your cringe family get carried to another ring with a bad late ball? Get over yourself, my dude.”
Satan: “Yeah, this was me.”
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:
- Valuable
- Concise
- Entertaining
Other emails offer analysis of college football and NFL games that founder Ed Feng has bet and a March Madness cheat sheet that makes it drop dead easy to win your pool.
To get this free service delivered straight into your inbox, enter your best email address and click on “Sign up now!”
Leave a Reply