Ed Hightower always discusses second half bonus strategy with the home coach
It was another gloomy day in East Lansing, with the “feisty” Iowa Hawkeyes taking it to the NIT-bound Spartans. For the Portal it was another can’t miss bet that went wrong, and with it exposes a developing trend that can’t be ignored: Home Teams are now 33-19-1 ATS (64%) in conference play, and if you throw out Michigan State’s pathetic 1-4 mark at home, 2/3 of the spreads have been covered by the locals. While Ohio State covering 8 versus Purdue or Wisconsin hitting the 4 against Illinois may not come across as surprising, we’ve seen too many superior teams fall victim to the Great Lakes interstate system. Iowa and Penn State over Michigan State, Indiana and Penn State over Illinois, and the Refs over Purdue in Madison weren’t bets that anyone could have seen coming. Who can we blame for this? The aforementioned Big Ten refs, notorious for lacking a backbone verus raucous home crowds, are high on the list. A balanced league (or soft middle, depending on how you look at things) certainly plays a part. A lack of response from Vegas? It’s always easy to blame the sharps when things aren’t going well.
So where do we go from here? There’s really only one logical option – ignore our own advice and start the new season taking a road dog.
In interest of disclosure, here are our results this far:
- Big Ten Picks 21-19 (includes non-conference)
- Non-Big Ten Picks 4-4
BIG TEN PICKS
Michigan +16 @ Ohio State With each win the pressure increases on Ohio State, and they’re only 2-5 ATS in Big Ten playing when laying more than 10 points. Confidence: 3
NON-CONFERENCE PICKS WE THINK WE LIKE
Arizona -3 @ Stanford The Wildcats have won 6 of 7 and have covered 3 straight, Stanford hasn’t been relevant since Mark Madsen