Tiny Nick’s Gambling Picks: 1/27

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Locks

NCAA Basketball – Drake -4 @ Missouri St. (-110):

What possible reason would you have to get off the Drake train now? As was somewhat expected, the Bulldogs came off their COVID layoff pretty flat and found themselves in a 15-point halftime hole. But they got back to their usual rhythm and covered yet another number to move to 12-0 ATS on the season.

While this ATS run can’t last forever, there’s reason to believe it will continue in this rematch. Missouri St. is a negative zig-zag team, with worse performances in all of their second leg spots by an average of 12.3 points. The Bears are a decent team, but they’re just outmatched against this Drake juggernaut that’s top-15 in every meaningful offensive and defensive metric.

With essentially the same spread as yesterday, I’ll count on Drake to shake off any remaining rust and cover yet again.

Bonus Pick: If you ever see this Drake team trailing at the half, they’re a great bet on the 2nd half spread or live moneyline. Drake is an average of 7.9 points better in the 2nd halves of their D1 games overall, and in the two games they’ve been down at halftime, they’re an average of 26 points better in the 2nd half.

NCAA Basketball – Sam Houston St. -9 @ Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (-110):

I love the Southland Conference because there are always around three clearly dominant teams who never lose to the rest of the league. Sam Houston St. is one of those dominant teams this season, and Corpus Christi is one of the clear doormats. Aside from Drake, this Sam Houston team is on the longest ATS streak in the country with nine straight covers, and they’re beating the spread by a 12-point margin on average in their conference games.

Corpus Christi owns a 3-6 ATS record, is 0-3 in conference against only the other doormat teams, and have missed the cover in those conference games by an 11.7-point margin. All those losses were by double-digits for the Islanders, so I like this single-digit spread here for Sam Houston St. The Bearkats should have an easy time in this one.

NCAA Basketball – Miami @ Florida State -11 (-110):

I love finding matchups of teams heading in opposite directions, and that’s what we have here.

Florida State is on fire right now, the rare team that has come back from a COVID layoff and actually gotten better. The Seminoles were a meager 3-4 ATS before their hiatus, but have now covered in four straight with an average margin of beating the spread of 15 points. They’ve really figured it out offensively, moving up to 21st in offensive efficiency.

Compare that to a Miami team who is 251st in offensive efficiency and 262nd in effective field goal percentage. The Hurricanes were competitive earlier this month with a string of single-digit games against good ACC competition, but have fallen apart since with a 1-3 ATS run and two straight road losses by 20-plus points. The Hurricanes simply won’t be able to keep up here, and this could get ugly.

NBA – Timberwolves @ Warriors -8 (-110): 

No Karl-Anthony Towns and no D’Angelo Russell means no chance for a Minnesota Timberwolves win against a motivated Andrew Wiggins and Co.

The Golden State Warriors are playing pretty good ball led by Steph Curry, Draymond Green while getting great contributions out of rookie stud James Wiseman and Kelly Oubre. Oubre struggled early but has turned it on as of late, and this Wolves team just doesn’t have any scoring or size.

The over is intriguing but let’s not get cute when the Wolves should get blown out in this one, especially when the 4th quarter starts. I just don’t see how Jordan McLaughlin, Malik Beasley, and Jarred Vanderbilt are going to keep up with this Curry-led offense.

Bonus Lock; Wiggins Over 17.5 Points (-110): As I said when these teams played just a couple days ago, Wiggins is extra motivated to beat his former team. If his point spread comes in under 19.5 (it’s currently at 17.5), I would take the over and a play on his rebounds over if the odds don’t steam up too much. It’s going to be another effort night for Wiggins to prove his former team wrong.

NBA – Malik Beasley Over 19.5 Points (+105): 

This one is pretty simple for me, Beasley is the only real scorer the Wolves will have tonight against Golden State. He’s coming off of his first 30 point output in Minnesota so I expect him to keep that momentum going, especially with plus-odds on a number under 20!

Degenerates

NBA – Wizards @ Pelicans -8 (-110):

I get a weird feeling this game will probably go over as well, but I’m gonna stick to what I know best — and that is that the Washington Wizards are bad.

The New Orleans Pelicans should be back to full strength with the young core of Zion Williamson, Lonzo Ball, and Brandon Ingram leading the way against a team with a reeling Russell Westbrook and a frustrated Bradley Beal alongside a bunch of nobodies. Roll with the Pelicans in this one while expecting them to put up a lot of points against a Wizards team that is on a back-to-back coming off of a depressing loss against the mediocre Houston Rockets.

Tiny Nick is 119-69 ATS (+47.6 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. 

Tiny Nick’s Gambling Picks: 03/28
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Tiny Nick’s Gambling Picks: 03/27
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Tiny Nick’s Gambling Picks: 03/26

Photo credit: USA Today

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