Looking for sharp sports betting action this weekend? I hope you will grant me Monday as part of your weekend. Your curated list of tips, analytics and humor, every Saturday at 10am Eastern.
NBA Finals player prop – Indiana’s TJ McConnell has provided a spark off the bench against Oklahoma City in the Finals. The 6’1″ point guard might be the shortest player on the court, but he facilitates the Pacers offense.
The market has 10.5 points plus assists for McConnell. He has gone over this in three of four Finals games and came up just short in Game 4 on Friday night. He is consistently getting minutes in the teens during the series, and he has averaged 8.6 points and 4.0 assists in the playoffs.
There is value in TJ McConnell over 10.5 points plus assists, -112 on FanDuel. Game 5 tips on Monday at 8:30pm Eastern.
Jalen Milroe, Seattle Seahawks – On NFL.com, noted analyst Lance Zierlein wrote on Milroe at Alabama: “A lack of anticipation and timing leads to interceptions and contested throws to intermediate areas of the field.”
The data backs up this statement, as Milroe had a 3.5% interception last season at Alabama, worse than the college football average of 2.8%. However, this might be misleading.
In my research, I’ve found that using interceptions plus passes defended, or plays in which the defense gets a hand on the ball, is a more robust metric for predicting future interceptions. Bad ball rate is the sum of interceptions and passes defended per attempt, and a low rate means a QB doesn’t put the ball in dangerous situations.
Milroe had a 9.7% bad ball rate last season, much better than the 13.3% college football average. I don’t know how this will translate to the NFL, but it is a strong sign for Milroe.
Gold Cup – The bad news for the United States men’s national team? A 4-0 thumping by Switzerland dropped them from 24th to 26th in The Power Rank’s world soccer/football rankings. The USMNT didn’t have key players like Christian Pulisic, Tim Weah and Weston McKinner, and none of these players will be available for the Gold Cup.
The good news for the USMNT? They are still the highest ranked team playing in the CONCACAF Gold Cup.
- Canada ranks 32nd. While Jonathan David might be the most underrated striker in the world, they will miss Bayern Munich star Alphonso Davies due to a knee injury.
- Mexico ranks 41st, as they have fallen over the past two years. They ranked 23rd before the start of the 2022 World Cup.
FanDuel has the United States and Mexico as co-favorites (+190) with Canada as a distant third (+650).
Bet Bash – I’m honored to be hosting a live episode of The Football Analytics Show podcast at Bet Bash, the best conference for sports bettors. The show will be Thursday, August 14th at 3pm Pacific, and I have already secured professional bettor Mike Craig as a guest.
Spanky, the creator of Bet Bash, joined me on the podcast to discuss the fifth edition of Bet Bash. In addition, he talked about coining a now universal term on my podcast and how big a market has to get before his group gets interested in a must listen episode of The Football Analytics Show.
More information on tickets to Bet Bash.
Soccer humor – The best American soccer player Christian Pulisic decided to skip this summer’s Gold Cup due to fatigue, and he is getting roasted for it.
I personally like that Pulisic favors load management, as these top soccer players log too many minutes. But getting labelled Charmin Ultrasoft is still funny.
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