BetIQ Daily: Illinois vs. Rutgers and Atlantic 10 Picks

Wednesday's BetIQ picks head to New Jersey, where Illinois faces off with Rutgers, and also provides a recap of picks to date.

February 16, 2022 - by Jason Lisk

Kofi Cockburn and Illinois take on a surging Rutgers team (Joe Robbins/Icon Sportswire)

BetIQ Daily is about to hit the three-month mark, so we take a look at how the pick categories have done, and also head to the Atlantic Coast for a Big Ten matchup and the Midwest for an Atlantic-10 matchup. Ah, college basketball re-alignments!

1) Illinois -4

  • NCAAB Spread Pick
  • at Rutgers, Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. ET on Big Ten Network
  • This is a playable model pick for Tuesday at 54.5 percent cover odds, according to our Ensemble Forecast model.
  • Rutgers has been playing like a tournament team since start of January and return of Geo Baker, and has three straight wins over ranked teams (Michigan State, Ohio State, and Wisconsin).
  • But the Illini are an even better team than their raw numbers. They’re a national title contender with center Kofi Cockburn playing.
  • In 11 games with current starting five since mid-December, they have an average Game Score of 22.1 (vs. 14.7 in all other games).

2) La Salle +14

  • NCAAB Spread Pick
  • at Saint Louis, Wednesday at 8:00 p.m. ET
  • This is right below the cutline of playable, according to our Ensemble Forecast model (52.4 percent).
  • La Salle is playing better over last six games with current starting lineup, and worst game in that stretch came in 18-point home loss to Saint Louis.
  • Saint Louis is coming off consecutive losses to St. Bonaventure and plays conference leader Davidson next.
  • La Salle is 4-2-1 ATS as a road dog this season

BetIQ Daily Is Starting to Sleep Through the Night

The first BetIQ Daily picks began back in mid-November with an enthralling under pick on the Falcons-Patriots Thursday Night Football game. We are now approaching the three-month mark, so here’s a summary of the BetIQ Daily picks highlighted by sport and spread vs. over/under, through the ups and downs:

  • NFL Spread/Moneyline: 21-18 (+10.4 units)
  • College Basketball Spread/Moneyline: 18-8 (+9.4 units)
  • College Football Over/Unders: 6-3 (+2.5 units)
  • College Basketball Spread/Moneyline: 8-6 (+1.3 units)
  • NBA Spread/Moneyline: 3-3 (+0.0 units)
  • College Basketball Over/Unders: 5-8 (-3.5 units)
  • NFL Over/Unders: 13-16 (-4.2 units)

Those ups and downs included an 0-5 day on our first college football Saturday of picks, and getting every over/under in the NFL playoffs wrong. On the other hand, we had a strong run in the bowl games, lots of big hits on NFL upset moneylines, and a good stretch this month of college basketball spread picks.

We’re still young, but we hope you’ll stick with us. As we move into the NFL offseason, we’ll also do more experimenting with some different things besides picks as well.

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:

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