NCAA Pick of the Day 01/14/25 (109-81): ECU +3.5 -110

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Analysis:

Note: Today got away from me a bit and there was a bigger than usual delay between releasing the play to SQB members and publishing it to the blog/email, which I try to keep to about half an hour. I released +3.5 -110 at 10:30am ET. It is still playable at +2.5 and +2.

My favorite phrase, and potentially one of my most well known mantras in my time handicapping college hoops, applies today - "the model's got the wrong team favored."

ECU just fought tooth and nail against the Memphis Tigers, and although they did not win - they looked great. They have been looking great, at least under the hood - because when taking a look at just results, you might not get the same picture.

That's because I am wagering on a team that has lost 5 straight games, but ShotQuality has only expected the most recent Memphis game to be a loss. In the two games prior, Temple and FAU outscored SQQ expectations by 12+ points each to secure narrow victories against the Pirates. SQ asks the question, what if Temple hadn't shot 9/16 from deep and 22/24 from FT, both their best of the season. What if ECU hadn't shot 5/19 on threes against FAU or FAU didn't also go 10/20 from deep in the same game... these have been near perfect storm scenarios leading into that Memphis game that led to a line that much too large against Memphis, and will be too large again today.

In fact, the SQ model goes as far to have ECU projected to win outright! Grab the Pirates to turn it around at home tonight.

SQ's Projection: ECU 66 - UNT 63.5 Visit the Matchup Simulator with any membership to view all projections from the model!

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Yesterday's Pick Recap: Houston Christian +15.5 ❌

Final Score: McNeese 75 - HCU 59. Post-Game SQ Score: McNeese 81.2 - HCU 66.1 Pre-Game Projection: McNeese 71.5 - HCU 67.5.

Takeaways: Yesterday, when I said, "when we lose a horrible beat, this is the one to think back to" about the Iona miracle win, I did not think we'd be using up that luck the very next day but that's how it goes. We gave it right back by the hook. The expected spread was 15.1 so almost exactly like yesterday except that we didn't get that one single point to get us to a victory. Still, they fought pretty hard after being down 25 early to a cold start - they just couldn't make up for it. When the spread is that close to the SQ margin, it indicates that the line was a good one and that there probably wasn't one true correct side. I'd still probably play it again, given the information - this went almost as poorly as it could to start and we still almost got it home.

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