How the College Basketball model is tested
How a pick is made
Team strength, built from the games themselves. It calls who wins.
- Every game's result
- The margin
- The opponent
- Home court
- The recent lineup
The exact inputs and how they are weighted stay private.
When books price a game, the win chance is the market's no-vig price, so picks usually match the favorite. The model decides the games the books haven't priced.
Tuned on old seasons, frozen, then scored on games it had never seen.
A change ships only if it holds up there. Most ideas don't, and they stay out.
Every pick is stored before tip-off.
It can update until then. The version at tip-off is the one graded, and it can't be edited after.
Graded after the final, misses included, nothing deleted.
Winners are the record: no spread or over/under records. Every pick is in the ledger →
205 college basketball picks locked for the games ahead. Every one grades here for free after the final. Seeing them before the start is Pro.
See the picks →Start 7-day free trialHow it has held up
College Basketball: when it said 70%, did it win 70%?Each lane is a confidence band. Calibrated means the dot lands in its gray band; the bar shows luck's range.
Mostly: 3 of 5 bands with enough picks landed where they said, within luck's range.
- Said50–60%38%24 of 63
- Said60–70%67%32 of 48
- Said70–80%59%29 of 49
- Said80–90%88%52 of 59
- Said90–100%97%194 of 200
Live picks, locked before the start. Backtest: walk-forward backtest of the ratings alone, held-out seasons 2020–25, not in the record. Lanes with fewer than 10 graded picks are faded.
Expected vs actual winnersThe dashed line is the wins its own probabilities expected, shaded for luck's 90% band. Solid is what happened.
The solid line ends below the shaded band: the record is running behind what its probabilities said.
Show as a table
| After pick | Date | Won | Expected | 90% band |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 52 | Nov 2 | 38 | 41.8 | 37.5–46.0 |
| 105 | Nov 2 | 81 | 87.5 | 81.8–93.1 |
| 157 | Nov 5 | 127 | 132.7 | 125.9–139.4 |
| 210 | Nov 6 | 173 | 177.4 | 169.5–185.2 |
| 262 | Nov 7 | 215 | 219.4 | 210.4–228.3 |
| 314 | Nov 8 | 250 | 257.8 | 247.6–268.0 |
| 367 | Nov 10 | 293 | 302.0 | 291.0–312.9 |
| 419 | Nov 11 | 331 | 344.1 | 332.4–355.9 |
College Basketball backtest · not in the recordEvery game priced only from what was known before it, then scored once. Kept apart from the record.
Walk-forward backtest of the ratings alone, held-out seasons 2020–25.
A model read is information, not advice to bet. Past results do not guarantee future ones. Data and analytics only, not betting advice: any bet is your own decision, and we are not responsible for losses. 21+ only. Gambling problem? Call or text 1-800-GAMBLER.