And we back, and we back, and we back ...

DJ Dimes returns (again) with the sole purpose of ensuring all 3MW degenerates remain sharp in their daily gambling decisions.  I still have some catching up to do in terms of updating general college hoop betting trends, top ATS teams and the almighty Green Magic system from the beginning of February.  Apologies for the the brief hiatus from posting daily plays, but I place most of the blame on [twitterless] Chris Johnston, who recently provided me with the Holy Grail of databases. Armed with this data, I have been preoccupied working on the re-release of the next generation of Green Magic (version 2.0), which will finally incorporate historical against-the-spread data (!!!!).

To give some brief background, Chris has been collecting historical ATS results for college hoop dating as far back as 2008.  With this data now at my disposal, Green Magic is ready to take the next step in its evolution, which will involve identifying similar historical game matchups, and the ATS outcome of those specific matchups.  In this not-so-distant utopia, Green Magic will be able to quantify a confidence level ATS value for all current teams, based on 1) how many of the most similar teams covered in the past (ATS record) AND 2) how much those similar teams covered by in the past (margin of cover).  Needless to say, I am giddy to begin incorporating this in to the Green Magic process, which will inevitably result in the release of Green Magic 2.0, set to debut at the beginning of next season (womp wompppp). In the interim, I will continue to post progress and daily plays of Green Magic version 1.0, which simply identifies value based on how historical teams performed relative to their initial expectation.  First time readers, please refer to "The Birth of Green Magic" for context.

Before examining how Green Magic did "behind the curtains" over the last week and a half, lets first cover general trends and best/worst ATS teams from the month of January:

General Betting Trends (1/20/16 - 1/30/16)

It's safe to say public team backers had themselves a field day throughout the final days of January.  Just as a refresher, "public teams" refer to any team in which over 60% of the total bets come in on that side.  We here at 3MW have done some segmentation analysis on the gambling community, and have identified that one such group of gamblers consistently side with the public.  Below is a sketch of "Mr. Spinny", a persona we created to help you visualize what these individuals might look like:

I would generally advise most of you to fade this guy, but recent results would suggest that "fading those who fade the public" is much more profitable strategy.  Shown below are the updated General Betting Trend records:  

Best & Worst ATS Records (1/4/16 - 1/30/16)

Shown below are the best and worst teams against-the-number since the beginning of conference play:

A few observations about the best and worst ATS teams since the beginning of January:

• Wichita & Valpo keep rolling:  Gregg Marshall & Bryce Drew consistently dominating their respective leagues is starting to become old news. After rolling through conference play last year, both the Shockers & Crusaders have been even more dominant in 2016 (Wichita: 11-1 & Valpo: 10-1), led by their elite defensive efforts night-in and night-out.  While the Shock are ranked 8th nationally in Adjusted Defensive Efficiency (per Kenpom.com), Valpo's D currently sits atop everyone else in the country, allowing an absurd 88 points per 100 possessions in conference play.
• Bo's Badgers aren't going ANYWHERE: Wisconsin's postseason dreams were hanging by the thinnest of threads after starting out 1-4 in Big Ten play.  After a crazy home win against Sparty on January 17th, the Badg now find themselves 6-4 in the league, with home wins against Indiana & Ohio St, re-solidifying their name in the bubble discussion for an at-large birth.
• Seton Hall might be good: Though Big East diehards will be quick to point out their lack of quality conference wins, it's hard to deny the consistently of the Pirates over the course of the 2016 campaign.  Kevin Willard's seat was scorching hot at the beginning of last year, and was probably lukewarm for the first month of this season too.  His squad has quickly extinguished serious talks of termination, with the Pirates now sitting at 7-4 in Big East play, including 4 straight wins against the Johnnies, Creighton, G'Town and Marquette. Don't look now, but Hall is knocking on the door of a top 30 ranking in Kenpom.com.
• Vanderbust, I hate thou:  The Maui instant classic featuring Vanderbilt and Kansas feels like it happened a decade ago.  After giving the Beakers all they could handle, my colleague Jimmy Root was quick to gloat about his (at the time) savvy 75-1 future on Vandy to cut down the nets.   You could have made an exceptional case in December that this was a top-10 squad, with even an even higher ceiling.  On paper, The 'Dores remain one of my favorite teams in recent memory, which is what makes this season's letdown so incredibly frustrating.  It's tough to assess where exactly the blame should fall, but it's quite clear Vandy lacks completely in on-floor leadership. 

Green Magic Results (1/4/16 - 1/30/16)

Ahhh, my superstitious nature of posting daily picks is officially proving to be accurate.  After hitting rock bottom on January 24th, Green Magic proved to be exceptionally resilient through the closing days of the month.  Please see below chart for YTD performance, and its epic rally from January 25th - January 30th:

For the select few of you who begin as my guinea pig testers, I sincerely apologize for the timing of your onboarding and "offboarding" with the Green Magic system, which began sometime around mid-January and ended before this resurgence on January 25th.  

When I initially glanced at the updated confidence unit return graph above, I suspected most of these gains were due to hitting a few of the big 3-unit & 4-unit bets.  To my surprise, it's actually been the lower confidence plays that have revived Green Magic back to the glory days of early January.  See below for YTD records for all unit plays:

I will be resuming daily pick posting shortly, but based on brief historical precedent, I would fade GM when she is back and open for public consumption.  For those of you skeptic about the YTD returns, message us directly at @_3MW_ on Twitter and I am happy to provide the detail excel doc, which tracks all games since December 28th.  Also message us if there are specific types of betting trends you'd like to see, in addition to the general trends, best/worst ATS records and Green Magic results, on a weekly or bi-monthly basis.  

Stay tuned for another quick turnaround with the updates from the first week of February...