BetIQ Daily: Chiefs vs. Broncos and Saturday College Basketball Picks
Picks for Saturday include spread and total plays for the Chiefs vs. Broncos and a college basketball pick involving Conference USA.
January 8, 2022 - by Jason Lisk
Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs are the popular kids (Scott Winters/Icon Sportswire)
BetIQ Daily is awake for a full Saturday of action, where we have a lot of big college basketball games and two notable NFL contests with the Chiefs vs. Broncos and Cowboys vs. Eagles kicking off Week 18.
1) Kansas City/Denver Over 45 Points
- NFL Over/Under Pick
- Saturday, 4:30 p.m. ET on ABC/ESPN
- This is a playable pick according to our Ensemble Forecast model, with 56 percent cover odds according to our Decision Tree model.
- Point total has moved up 1.5 points since opening, along with Chiefs’ big line move to -11.
- Kansas City has averaged 31.75 points per game in four games in Denver with Mahomes at QB.
2) Kansas City -10.5
- NFL Spread Pick
- Saturday at Denver, 4:30 p.m. ET on ABC/ESPN
- The Chiefs had covered six straight before last week’s loss to Cincinnati.
- Denver is 0-3 ATS in the last three games, where QB Drew Lock has played because of Teddy Bridgewater’s concussion in Week 15.
- Kansas City is 10-0 SU and 7-3 ATS in true division road games over the last four years with Mahomes at QB.
3) UAB -9
- College Basketball Spread Pick
- Saturday at Rice, 4:00 p.m. ET
- Playable college basketball spread pick according to our Ensemble Forecast model, Decision Tree model, and Predictive Rating model.
- UAB is one of the best mid-majors in country and projected champion of Conference USA.
- Against the five opponents with most similar power rating to Rice, UAB is 5-0 and has won all five of those games by at least 13 points.
Saturday College Basketball Games to Watch
Here are some other matchups to watch on Saturday:
- Seton Hall (-4.5) vs. Connecticut, 12 p.m. ET on FOX
- Houston (-11.5) vs. Wichita State, 12 p.m. ET on CBS
- Texas (-2.5) at Oklahoma State, 2 p.m. ET on CBS
- Kansas (-4.5) at Texas Tech, 4 p.m. ET on ESPN2
- San Diego State (-2.5) vs. Colorado State, 4 p.m. ET on CBS
- Oklahoma (-6) vs. Iowa State, 6 p.m. ET on ESPNU
- LSU (-1.5) vs. Tennessee, 6 p.m. ET on ESPN2
- Auburn (-7.5) vs. Florida, 8 p.m. ET on ESPN2
- BYU (-3.5) vs. St. Mary’s, 10 p.m. ET on ESPN2
We also had Michigan State at Michigan on our list of big games for today, but that one was just postponed due to COVID protocols with Michigan this morning. Hopefully, the rest of these games will be played today, as things can change at the last minute.
As of right now, we have a total of nine playable college basketball spread picks and 43 playable over/unders on Saturday.
Top Pick Performance Trends
Our algorithmic models use over a decade of data to predict every game across five sports.
As of post time, here are some highlights of prediction performance from our primary Ensemble Forecast model this season, for playable-rated picks (52.5% confidence or better) against game-day betting lines:
- NFL point spread picks: 47-33-2 (59%, +9.7 units)
- College football over/under picks: 179-146-3 (55%, +16.7 units)
- NBA spread picks: 13-10 (57%, +1.8 units)
- NBA moneyline picks: 74-66 (+7.5 units)