Battling the Books | July 13th

Silly Stupid Superstitions Part 2

After I had an easy winner with Marina Mabrey over 1′ three-pointers on Thursday, I figured it’s a good time to go back and check my record on props, to see if I should be playing more of them.

My log book shows seven prop bets made:

Luca Doncic Over 9′ rebounds.
He finished with 11.
A win by 1′ points.

Dereck Lively Ov 13′ points and rebounds.
He finished with 24.
A win by 10 points.

Kahleah Copper Ov 20′ points.
She finished with 34.
A win by 13 points.

Myisha Hines-Allen Ov 9′ points.
She finished with 11.
A win by 1′ points.

Kayla McBride Ov 2′ three-pointers.
She finished with two.
A loss by the hook.

Odyssey Sims Ov 10′ points.
She finished with 25.
A win by 14 points.

Marina Mabrey Ov 1′ three-pointers.
She finished with 4.
A win by 2′.

Record: 6-1, with the lone loss being by a hook.
So yeah, I guess I should be doing more.

The only thing I don’t like about those numbers is they’re all Overs, which is a little too Joe Public for me, and it’s odd because I usually play more Unders than Overs.

The problem with handicapping props is:

One – it takes a lot of time to crunch the numbers to come up with a prop bet selection. I’m already putting a lot of time into handicapping full game sides and totals, and doing my write-ups, and there’s only so many hours in the day.

Two – It’s extremely difficult to find a prop to play before my morning submission deadline.
A lot of mornings I try, but couldn’t find any edges for the players that I looked at. For the seven I have played I was fortunate enough to look at those players before looking at others, and found numbers I thought I could exploit.

But here’s the good news. As I mentioned in the July 4th edition of “Battling the Books,” I’ll soon be able to post my picks throughout the day.

I’ll also be able to give my picks and analysis on early games, the ones that start at 9:00 or 10:00 a.m. PST. Right now I can’t get my write-ups in before early morning tip offs. And I have a system for totals on weekday early starts that I’d like to share.

So keep checking in for more game picks.
And prop bets.

Recap: 0-1
Record: 8-5

Review: Like they always told us in school – never change your original answer.
I had my numbers saying “Fade the Under” but abandoned them and went with my gut feeling instead. (For a handicapping exercise this week I think I’ll go through my picks and see what my record is when I took my gut feel instead of my numbers from the different methods I used. Might find something useful I can apply over the rest of the season.)

Phoenix center Brittney Griner left early in the game with an injury, and the Mercury were totally unable to stop the Fever from driving to the hoop. Despite a 14 point Q4 by Indiana the game still went Over by 5 points.

Today’s play

Excerpt from my June 30th article:
Review: As noted in the write-up on my last play, I mentioned I have a silly, stupid superstition that tells me,
“ Don’t bet a play that fits a system today after you had a chance to play it the previous day but laid off of it, and it won.”
Turns out it’s not such a silly, stupid superstition after all, as I played 14-3 Connecticut in a system I passed on the day before with Seattle that won, and the Sun proved my superstition to be correct as they lost SU by 4 points as a -9′ point favorite to 6-9 Atlanta.
So, note to self, next time . . .

Well it’s next time and I’m not going to take my own advice. I only have one play today that qualifies and it’s the same spot I passed on yesterday, Fading the Under.

From yesterday:

My second best (record-wise) method says take Phoenix/Indy Un 175′; tonight.
The record for this play is 2-4.
Digging deeper into a subset, when my best Ov/Un method disagrees with this secondary method, the record is 0-2.
That’s two decent stats that say Fade this play and take the Over tonight.

I ignored that play andwent with my gut instead.
And got beat.
The record is now 2-5, the subset now 0-3.

My superstition says, “ Don’t bet on a play that you passed on the day before that won.”
And the last time I did, I got beat.
But, like the bug that keeps flying back to the zapper and getting zapped, like the lab rat that can’t figure out which of the two levers he pushes gives it a food pellet and which one gives it a shock and keeps getting shocked, I laugh in the face of silly, stupid superstitions and am fading the Under.

LA/Dal Ov 172′