Tiny Nick’s Gambling Picks: 12/20

Locks

NCAA Football (0.5 Unit) Indiana/Notre Dame Over 51.5 (-110; Odds via Caesars): 7:00 PM CT on ESPN

This is a strength-on-strength game, as elite offenses square off against elite defenses. At least in the metrics department, which might not be telling the entire story of Indiana’s defense after a season of lots of mismatches.

The Hoosiers are well-coached on that side of the ball, and actually finished the year ranked first in both rush success and line yards. But that schedule and the resulting flow of the games made Indiana not have to face any kind of committed rush attack for the vast majority of the season. Notre Dame will bring one of the best run games in the country to the CFP, and should cause trouble for the Hoosiers.

And the Irish also have the country’s top passing success defense, which goes up against the best passing success offense from Indiana. In that matchup I have to side with Indiana’s offense having the edge to put up points, certainly if the game flow gets away from them. All in all, it’s a fairly low total for two excellent offenses, and I think they can overcome the excellent defenses to get over this number.

NCAA Basketball (0.5 Unit) Akron/Yale Over 155.5 (-110; Odds via Caesars): 6:00 PM CT on ESPN+

This should be a game where Yale gets back to the early season up-tempo style that caused so many overs for their games to start the year. Yale tends to be a pace taker, usually allowing the opponent to dictate game flow, and that will allow Akron to turn this into a track meet.

The Zips play at a top-50 adjusted tempo, so they’ll combine with Yale’s willingness to run and make this like most of their games which have averaged 164.6 PPG. Two very good three-point shooting teams should also have their way tonight against bad perimeter defenses, so this total that’s well below the metrics site projections should make its way over.

Degenerates

No degenerates today.

Tiny Nick has gained +74.3 Units on his Locks since joining Zone Coverage. 

Every day he will offer his Locks and Degenerate picks. Locks are the games he’s confident in. Degenerates are entertaining but riskier picks.