NCAA Pick of the Day 01/13/25 (109-80): Houston Christian +15.5 -112

Never miss a pick! Sign up for the POTD email on the home page!

Analysis:

Honestly, I probably should have waited to play this line - McNeese is a public darling and I got down on 14.5 earlier this morning prior to getting around to writing the article and making the graphic. For all intents and purposes, there still might be value in waiting... though this article does have a small bit of sway... so I'm not sure, really. I bet it and trying to predict line movements is more akin to reading tea leaves than just handicapping basketball teams!

What I do know for sure is that SQ absolutely loves Houston Christian. Talk about a darling... I've been playing on this team almost every single week because of the value their shots create against their perception in the market. You can not tell me that McNeese is getting motion in a Southland conference game for any other reason than their popularity and perceived dominance. This is still a conference road game and I think this HCU team is right up there with Lamar and TAMCC for contenders for the title behind McNeese as the obvious, returning favorite.

HCU is taking really smart shot this year. We're talking about a jump in SQ from 355 last season, dead last, to in the 250s this year. That's insanely impressive and will not be something prior-heavy models and recency bias heavy bettors will be looking for at all. They are selecting the 55th best shots in the country and limiting opponents to bottom percentile (yes, second best in the nation defensively) spacing. They've also improved on their turnover rates from past seasons so they're getting a good few more possessions per game.

McNeese is pretty accurately rated, but their half court defense is expected to be bad, and they're getting lucky that their opponents have shot terribly against them all season. Everything lines up for HCU here, including the market not having any idea how far they've come. I don't think the closing number will matter, but try to get the best value you can. The SQ model has this at just 4 points, which should illustrate how impressed we are with this team. Four is definitely a bit aggressive but I make it +9.5, there's plenty of value to go around.

SQ's Projection: McNeese 71.5 - HCU 67.5 Visit the Matchup Simulator with any membership to view all projections from the model!

Get 15% OFF your first purchase with Code: "POTD" !!

Watch Tonight's Game with ShotQuality Live FOR FREE - SQLive is the only live regression data software with up-to-the-minute expected scores!

Get all 5500+ College Basketball games with SQLive, plus NBA and WNBA games included only with Premium Yearly Membership!

& make sure to watch BetCast to see SQLive in action and learn more about ShotQualityBets!

Yesterday's Pick Recap: Iona +1.5 ✅

Final Score: QUIN 63 - IONA 62. Post-Game SQ Score: QUIN 74.7 - RAD 74.0. Pre-Game Projection: IONA 71 - QUIN 66.

Takeaways: I thought this was over, personally - it took about as much as a miracle as you can get to cash this one. We'll take it, SQ had it right at the same differential of a point and when we lose a horrible beat, this is the one to think back to. This result indicates neither a good nor bad bet, and probably a smidge of luck... but really not as much as it feels like since the differential and SQ differential are separated by 0.3 points.

Recaps are a NEW section to the POTD to help illustrate how SQ data can be used to qualify bets beyond winning and losing!