 This is covering the spread here are your hosts Jim Saunas and Dr. Ed Fang What is going on everybody welcome on into covering the spread that's right here on the fan dual podcast network and number fire Dot com we're today We're talking NBA player props with the prop queen herself Ariel Epstein of sports grid and the morning after getting her thoughts on Her process for betting NBA player props how she whittles down her list and more my name is Jim Saunas I am a senior writer and analyst for number fire dot com joined here as always by dr. Ed Fang You can find his work over at the power rank calm and Ed We're gonna be doing our NCAA tournament podcast of next month obviously We're gonna do it live on a Monday to get just that for your brackets But in the past we've done the show on Monday because there are playing games like right away And the tournament started Thursday this year My internal clock is gonna be all messed up because there's certain things on Friday, and I am preemptively like my brain is confused already I actually love it. I mean I got an extra day to You know soak in the attention because those are you know those are pretty Usually for pretty big days and it's it's kind of shocking how much the spigot like turns off as soon as the tournament starts Like my email goes dead my like site You know not as many I mean, you know some small fraction of what was before so I'm a little excited about it I actually just found it so so the tournament the real round of 64 starts on Friday now So you have a whole extra day to fill out your brackets And so you're gonna have around a 64 on Friday and Saturday You're gonna have around a 32 on Sunday and Monday And then what I actually maybe like the most is that the sweet 16 doesn't start until Saturday so you got the full weekend to enjoy more of those games instead of trying to cram them into a night on a Thursday And a Friday and then all you really need is like the prime time to get those league eight games on a Monday and Tuesday So I'm I'm pretty excited about the schedule. Yeah, I think it's interesting I guess I wasn't aware this is gonna happen. I just think back I had a friend in high school who would always Magically get sick the Thursday Yeah, he would always get sick and like I'm thinking about all the port like your kids I don't know if they put never pulled this but like have decided like cough cough dad Like I can't go to school today because it's the NCAA tournament now It's just one day of faking being sick as opposed to two like that kind of throws a wrench in the entire plans Yeah, well my kids need to pretend that they like sports first That aspect of the things but what was actually really funny was I was trying to explain this to my wife And she's like wait, when are you usually gone for this March madness thing? I was like, come on We we we first got together in 2001. So this is gonna be our 20th March together. I was like, yes It is normally Thursday through Sunday and I'm still a little shocked that she doesn't instinctively know exactly when those four days are Right, so that was an interesting conversation for me last week Absolutely, we're gonna talk more about March Madness again the Monday before the tournament will have a live show that Monday at 6 p.m Eastern the lineup to be announced Some fun guests coming along for sure another live show then Monday 6 p.m Eastern on the 15th to get you set for your brackets and talk about that Also looking for my college basketball stuff. We had Greg Peterson on last week to talk his college basketball betting process We talked about betting at high volume how he go through all that stuff really fun conversation with Greg I recommend going back and listening to that you can find that by searching for covering the spread wherever you get your Podcasts and to get every podcast right as it goes up Make sure you are subscribed and if you like what you hear leave us a rating and review as well We're gonna get to aerial obscene in just one second but first sports betting is great Sports betting with Fandal sportsbook is even better right now Fandal sportsbook is giving you a chance to bet on any NBA or soccer game with reduced risk with their exclusive same game parlay insurance Simply place a four leg or more parlay to be eligible for the offer and follow along as the game unfolds if exactly One leg loses Fandal will refund your bet up to twenty five dollars inside credit What do you have to lose had to Fandal sportsbook and place your same game parlay today must be New Jersey, Pennsylvania Illinois, West Virginia, Indiana, Colorado, Tennessee, Iowa and Virginia and Michigan refund issued as a non withdrawal boost like credit max refund 25 dollars terms apply gambling problem call 1 800 gambler in west Virginia visit 1 800 gambler net in Indiana call 1 809 with it in Colorado call 1 800 5 2 2 In Iowa, call 1-800-BETS-OFF. Let's get now to talking some player props with Ariel Epstein. You can find her on Twitter. At Ariel Epstein, she is the host of The Morning After, which is a show on sports grid and serious XM, nine to noon every weekday. We're gonna talk to her about betting player props and how her process works and get some tips if you're looking to dive into the props market. Covering the present. Let's bring Ariel Epstein into covering the spread to talk some NBA player props Ariel, I appreciate the time. We're switching roles. Usually I'm going on your show today, you're on ours. So how are you doing today? I'm great. I'm so excited to be on your show finally, Jim. Also, thank you for always coming on and being reliable Fridays. Football, NASCAR, baseball, you do it all. I'm excited to meet you also, Ed. And again, we're just gonna help people get a little bit more profitable from the Vandal Sportsbook. I mean, I just like getting the chance to spew my NASCAR takes to anyone who will listen. So it's a pleasure for me too. I can guarantee you that. And the show we're talking about here is, of course, the morning after, which is now on Serious as well in addition to Sports Grid. And you guys cover a lot of ground on that show. So what's the prep like work for you? Trying to cover all those bases, make sure you're prepared for a show where you're on air for a really long time, really early in the morning. Three hours, 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. on the East Coast. We used to be a two-hour show. When we added that third hour, my co-host Jared Smith and I said, oh no, are we going to make it? Now it flies in a blink of an eye. The prep work that goes into it is similar to just being on the show. In fact, it's more work to do the prep. The prep work takes me just as long. I end up sitting there handicapping for forever because what I didn't realize when getting into the media side of sports gambling, you're now handicapping on top of figuring out your show on top of what I love, what we do, which is mixing storylines of the day into the gambling perspective. Now you're finding storylines, you're trying to be like an ESPN at the same time as giving the handicapping, or giving out your handicapping advice, which takes forever. Yeah, and you have to do all of that while being informed. It's one thing to make a bet. You can make a bet with good information, but to talk about it, you have to have great information. That's tough. So respect to you for that and doing all the hustle for that. Like you said, the prep work is just as much as doing the show itself. It's been fun to listen for sure and a good experience so far. Now we're talking about player props for today, but we can also talk overall betting. Before we get into player props specifically, what does your process look like? Are you mainly focusing on player props yourself with your betting stuff, or are you dabbling into sides, totals, et cetera as well? I used to do sides and totals. I've really just zoned in on the props, especially in the NBA. In the NBA, if you bet on a player prop, let's say the player doesn't play, then your bet's void. However, if you bet on a side or a total, one of the stars don't play, your bet's not void, you're stuck with the team. It's easier for me to be able to predict an unpredictable NBA season with load management, injuries, et cetera, especially as we get closer to the all-star break that I think player props have been a little bit easier for me to get a grasp on. Now I'll show you this notebook that I have. I don't know if this is video and audio, but I'll show you guys. I literally will do something like this where I will have all of the different names of let's just say key players. So this one was for Brooklyn. So I have Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, James Harden and Joe Harris on this list. I figure out how many games all of them played in together. Then now that Kevin Durant's out, I figure out which games they played without Kevin Durant and how those players played without him. So when it came to figuring out last night with James Harden, let's just say for the Brooklyn Nets, James Harden, prior to these last three games, he wasn't really the scorer, it was Kyrie Irving. These last three games, as much as I really wanted to bet the under again on James Harden, saying there's gonna be some kind of scoring regression, the number showed me that James Harden, without Kevin Durant, the last three games has still put up over 25 points in all three of those games. So I decided to stay away from any unders on James Harden. I figure out different kind of correlations between which star players are on the floor at the same time. Then I also, instead of just looking at averages, let's just say Golden State Warriors allow the second most rebounds in the NBA. If you look at that average, you're gonna think, well, let's just say someone such as Bamette Abayo and the Heat are going up against the Warriors, you're gonna think, oh, well, Bamette Abayo leads the Heat in rebounds. Yeah, I'm gonna bet his over 11 and a half boards. Until you realize the Warriors don't really give up 12 rebounds to one individual player, they'll give up at least eight or nine rebounds to three or four players on a team. Then you start to say, oh, well, who's the second or third leading rebounder? Those are the kinds of correlations I look for. That's really interesting. And I wanna go back to the paper because my like handwriting has gone down the tubes because I just don't write. What is it about you that actually writing things down helps you with narrowing down your process and is it visualization? Does writing things down ingrain it for you? Or what's the decision for you to actually physically write things out? Maybe it's because I never took a class on Excel spreadsheets. I know people love Excel spreadsheets. It's also, to me, I don't feel like figuring out technology at the same time as figuring out trends, numbers, et cetera. If I could just write it down as if I'm an artist on a piece of paper and just section it off like this, then I'd rather just write it out instead of worrying about, oh, Excel's not processing this correctly, or, oh, let me figure out how to space this out on Excel to a way that I know. I just feel I have more power writing it in my own hands. Yeah, Ariel, I actually write a ton of stuff down as well. Like I have a huge notebook on every single college football team. I mean, clearly I run numbers too, but like, you know, it's useful to write things down. Like Hunter Dickinson is good, you know, that makes it stick, right? So, yeah, I have a huge notebook as well. It's good to see that other people. I mean, are you actually kind of calculating averages there or are you just kind of making notes on, you know, which games these guys played together? It's both, it's averages, it's figuring out just from a props perspective. It's hard to get a grasp when there's no prop out yet. Last night, for example, and the reason that I ran like a minute late getting onto the show for Skype here is because I was in the middle of figuring out Jimmy Butler and Bam Atabayo. The props didn't come out last night. I find myself all the time. I look at the scores on ESPN or whatever and I look at them at night and I think, why did I not bet that prop? Then I realized, oh, they weren't out when I was handicapping for my show in the morning. Totally forgot about them. So I decide to just wait for the props to come out. Then I do the assessment. For example, for the game that's going on tonight from Minnesota to Chicago, I really liked Patrick Williams of Chicago over five and a half rebounds. I realized 30 players in eight games have had over five and a half rebounds against Minnesota. 30 players in eight games. But I used that prop five and a half as where I, that's kind of the focal point, five and a half rebounds. Now how many players have gone over that number? Let's see what the second leading rebounder of Chicago's done. Now the tough thing for me when it comes to props, especially for like the NBA where it's X number of games every day is there's a lot to choose from. So how do you narrow that was down? Are you starting with like big high profile guys being out and standing from there? Are you looking to attack specific matchups? How do you narrow things down and decide which ones are the most profitable bets for you? Now you sound how I ask people about college basketball because that's how I feel completely overwhelmed. The way that I narrow it down in the NBA, I just take the bottom five or bottom 10 teams from each statistical category and I look at their opponents. I really focused more on points rebounds and assists. I like three pointers for a little bit yet now the variations are just so off. Anybody could have an on or off night with the three. I've stayed away from the three point shots. So when it comes to the points rebounds and assists, I look at the bottom five teams at defending against those. I'll look at the bottom five defenses, the bottom five teams who allow the most rebounds to opponents or the teams that allow the fifth most assists to opponents. Then I look at their opponent, take those kinds of props, I narrow it down from there. I might miss some here and there. It's okay, that's just how I narrow it down. So you're with SportsGrid and you guys have a relationship with Daily Roto. Do you find that you're using those player projections in some of your prop betting? Yeah, I'll use that as like a starting point. I'll see, okay, let's see who Daily Roto likes the under on because Daily Roto really gives us a ton of unders. I know a lot of people say, well unders are the sharper play, why are you always betting overs? To me, they're two separate handicaps. I would love to have all the time in the world to go and find the handicap for overs and then handicap the unders. Sometimes they correlate in my mind, it just doesn't work that way. When I'm handicapping, I'm looking for who's gonna profit to the over. Daily Roto gives you a ton of unders. If I go to Daily Roto and I see that their five star play is to the under and I initially thought maybe I'd like the over, then maybe I'll second guess and back off or I'll go look for another reason as to why Daily Roto calculated it to be an under. And I think that the discussion there about over versus unders is pertinent because if you were to automatically bet every under, you'd be profitable. We have a guy here at Ember Fire who's run that study, they've done that but that's not realistic. You're not gonna bet every single prop. So I think that- You had a handle. Right, they've got one or two per game. But to me, I think that the way my mind works, I think that it's easier for me for single games specifically to find guys who have paths to overs. So I actually do wind up breaking a very similar direction where even though I know that if I were to bet everything overs would be profitable. Like you can make money that way. I know I'm not doing that. So to me, I've actually found a similar thing where acknowledging that unders, if we're talking about everything would be the better play. I agree with you where to me, my mind works better in trying to identify overs and situations can do to that. I think we're on the same page there. It's the daily fantasy mindset because I started with props because of daily fantasy. It was my gateway drug into gambling. Then I decided from a daily fantasy perspective, you're always looking for overs. You're looking essentially for the players that are going to play their best game of the night. That's why I think my brain is operated to work to the over mentality. So Arielle, you mentioned that Fandall sportsbook might not be the place that you want to bet all the time. John Sharon has told us that at least he told me on my pod that their props aren't as sharp as their NFL sides. So I think what you were saying was suggesting that Fandall was pretty sharp on- Oh no, what I was saying with Fandall is that I'm not going to bet all of their props to the under because I can't afford that. There are too many. That's what I meant. There's too many of them to bet every prop to the under on Fandall. It's ridiculous the amount of options that we have. Got it. Do you have a preference in which books, like which books do you think are sharpest on NBA player props? Oh, Fandall. I asked for a friend. No, Fandall for sure has probably been the sharpest book. I always see Fandall ahead. Whether it's on props, whether it's on sides, I'll see other books in one direction by the time that we get to tip, those books have caught up to Fandall every time. John Sheeran loves to hear it. I think that he, you have him on your show too. So you know this. Yeah, you're not surprised. You know this. If I said anything else, he'd freak out. Right, exactly. He turned us down. He's a sharp guy. No, we're talking about like the, go ahead. John's going to give credit to all the, all you number fire guys. That's what he did on my show. He's like, oh yeah, that's all Keith and all those number fire guys. They help us with those player props. Yeah, Andy Sherman Ash is helping people out quite a bit. He's a very sharp guy over at number fire. Now there are, like you said, area, a lot of props. Do you dabble in any like the first basket props, anything like that? Or is it mostly for you points, rebounds, assists and stuff like that? I don't do first basket props the same way I hated any time touchdown props. People would say, oh, any time touchdown. Oh, so much fun, plus 500. Unless it's, Kyle, you check you're crazy. Everybody else is not worth it. I also, when it comes to NBA props, I've really discovered the rebounds plus assists prop. I love it. I don't know what it is. For some reason, I found this little niche with this rebounds plus assists. Draymond Green, Jimmy Butler, Bam Atabayo, they have been very profitable to the over on rebounds plus assists. I also will like some points props. I don't bet them too much. I really rely on the rebounds props more. Assist props have done well also. And then I like the Fandwell alternate props category. I call them alternate props. They're not really, I guess an alternate. It's those two plus, three plus, four plus rebounds, et cetera. I've liked those because you can same game parlay them. That gives you a better edge. For example, and I don't know when the show air, so I keep talking about tonight's games, but I just have these numbers in my head. Jared Allen, the center for the Cleveland Cavaliers. His prop is 13 and a half, which to me, I'd rather a 13. I could go same game parlay the 12 or more rebounds prop for Jared Allen and parlay it with something else, get me into a little bit of plus money. I'd rather do some kind of two player parlay, take that one and a half, buy a one and a half, essentially for rebounds and bet that 12 plus rebounds instead. Cool. Let's go on to some of the player futures markets. For the MVP, LeBron is the favorite at plus 150. You have Joel Embiid and Joe Kitchen there as well. Educate me a little bit on this market. Yeah, it's LeBron's award to lose. The only thing for me is I would say Joel Embiid, the Sixer center is the next best option. He opened at 24 to one to win the MVP Embiid. Now he's down to plus 350 on the Fandals sports book. The only reason I could see Embiid surpassing LeBron James in any way is if the Lakers fall out of even the top three in the West because of that little bit of regression. They're in third place right now, the Lakers for the Western Conference. They're a half a game behind the Clippers. They're three and a half games behind the Utah Jazz. Now we're looking at the Sixers who are number one in the Eastern Conference. Then look at the stats. Joel Embiid is leading in two different statistical categories. He's ranked third in points per game, just under 30 per game, and he's ranked ninth in rebounds per game, just over 11 per game. LeBron James is only in the top 10 in one statistical category from points rebounds assists. That's assists, he's ranked ninth. We're talking storylines when it comes to LeBron James. Has he played every game? Of course, it's amazing what he's been doing. He's out there on a mission. Are the Lakers the same without LeBron James? No, they're not. They're not a contender. When you talk about the Sixers, you can say the same thing about Joel Embiid. It's just that he's not LeBron James. Is LeBron really going to play every single game this year? Are the Lakers not going to be the one or the two seed in the West? Those are two deciding factors that I think could play a role when talking about LeBron James or Joel Embiid for MVP. I think that's a tough part of MVP betting is you have to think about the narratives. You have to think about, because it is a human-based award and it's tough to bet on those. Like in New York you can't bet on those markets, but like it's a human-based award. So you have to kind of put that extra thought into it and decide, okay, what will voters think about as opposed to what will the numbers, strictly the numbers say? And that's tough. We saw it with Tom Brady in the Super Bowl MVP. You probably saw it on my Twitter. I was so angry because I really wanted the Bucks linebacker, Devin White, to win it. I had 150 to one ticket on it. He really statistically, Devin White, was the best player out there. Tom Brady was not statistically the best. Did he have a perfect Super Bowl? Sure. Should he have been picked off? Absolutely, he got a flag. Congratulations, Brady. The narrative was in his favor. Yes, he's the reason that the Bucks made it to the Super Bowl from a leadership perspective. However, from a defensive perspective, from a team stats perspective, it should have been white. Going back to the NBA, it's the same thing. LeBron James, Tom Brady, they go hand in hand when you're talking about league MVPs. Didn't you bring that one up specifically, Ed, about Devin White? Oh, yeah, I was just going to say, Errol, you probably would have won that bet if Tom Brady weren't 43 years old, right? I mean, I'm personally. Or maybe even if Peyton Manning was the quarterback. Right. I mean, personally, I think Todd Boll should have gotten the MVP of the Super Bowl. But also, hey, I just wanted to say about Joel and Beat. I was actually making fun of them on my show the other day talking about how big I shouldn't shoot three pointers. And after I did that, I looked them up as like, he is shooting 40% this year, which is pretty remarkable. So I expect a little regression there, but obviously just a super talented player. He plays alongside Ben Simmons. That's why. Yeah, someone's got to do it. Someone's got to do it. It's not going to be Ben. Rookie of the Year market, Lamella Ball minus 410. We've got Tyrese Halliburton, who is six to one right now in that market. Are you avoiding this market because Lamella was such a big favorite? Do you think there's so value in Lamella? Can we find value elsewhere? What's your view of this one? I would stay away from this market. Lamella Ball is number one amongst rookies in every statistical category. He ranks number one when it comes to points per game, just under 15 per game. Number one amongst rookies when it comes to rebounds per game with just over six per game. And number one amongst rookies in assists per game with just over six of those per game. There's no competition here at the moment. At first, I thought maybe Tyrese Halliburton of the Kings had a chance because at one point, he did lead the rookies in points scored. Now he's a point behind Lamella Ball. I would stay away. When you see a minus 410 for an award, why bet it? I'd rather go find something in the MVP market. Or guess what? Baseball just announced on Fandall their awards markets. Go put your money there. That sounds good. We talked a lot about player props and some of the futures. Any other futures that you're interested in, Ariel? Not at the moment. I think that a lot of the value has been sucked out. We had World Wide Wild Rob Perez on the show months ago. He loved Jordan Clarkson for six men of the year. Now Clarkson's favored, I think it's minus 280. I've just been talking about these awards for months ever since they came out at the start of the season. Now I've seen a lot of these markets shift in the direction that a lot of the experts I've spoken to have said it would move in. And it did. LeBron James being one of those examples, LeBron was not the favorite. It was Luca Doncik. It was Gianna Santana-Cumpo. LeBron I think had the fifth best odds to win MVP in the preseason. Now he's the heavy favorite and it's his award to lose. I don't think that there's much value left in the player props futures market. Maybe you can in the Eastern Conference, I think as team futures, you can still find those values to make the playoffs in the Eastern Conference. When it comes to the players, I'm out. So Ariel, you're a Yankees fan, correct? Correct. Okay, so you mentioned the MLB player prop market. Can I tempt you into a Giancarlo Stanton 40-1 MVP ticket? Or is that a bridge too far for Yankees fans? Can you stay healthy? He played 158 in 157 games in 2017 and 2018. That was two years, three years ago, where we're gonna, you know, it's close enough, right? And then he was cursed by the Yankees curse when you come over from any team that's not within the Yankees field farm system, you end up not playing as much or as well. We're gonna find someone to take the bait on this Giancarlo prop at some point, I hear. 40-1. No, no, no. How old is the man? 31, I think. That's not. I think it's aged 31 season. That's not it for. I'm gonna find someone to take the bait on this. It's not his age, it's his history. I think there's value in the American League MVP race though, because it's Mike Trout at plus 220, then it's Alex Bregman at 11-1. That's probably the biggest drop-off in pre-season odds I've ever seen from a first to second place odds. I mean, and when Giancarlo Stanton hits his 60th home run, like, you know, that's gonna influence things as well. So... I understand. I get where you're coming from. The Yankees, if they don't win the American League East this year, I don't know what I'm going to do. Aaron Boone, this is the year, buddy. This is it. Yes, well, good vibes only. It's spring training. You don't have to worry about the demons yet. You're all good. The Blue Jays, not a thing yet, so you're all good. We can just focus on the positivity. That is Ariel Epstein. Yeah, exactly. It's always scary. But that is Ariel Epstein. Make sure you check her out on Twitter at Ariel Epstein and check out the morning after on Sports Grid and on SiriusXM. Ariel, I appreciate the time. Thank you so much for educating us on NBA Player Props. Good luck to you tonight and for the rest of the week. And hopefully we'll talk to you again here soon. Thanks so much, guys, for having me on. Had fun. Absolutely, thank you. Covering the future. Big thank you once again to Ariel Epstein for swinging by and talking about NBA Player Props. And I thought the point was pertinent that she brought up about how if a player winds up being inactive, your bet gets refunded, whereas that doesn't happen with sides and totals. And that actually was relevant for me back in December. I was betting on this Saturday and Miles Gaskin was someone who I was super interested in for the Dolphins that are running back. And I was like, cool, I'm gonna get Gaskin first touchdown score, Gaskin over his rushing yardage prop because I was expecting him to come back to a big workload. He tested positive for COVID later that day. Didn't matter because I got refunded. I think that that's a good point to bring up. No, I think it's an excellent point, right? I mean, a decade ago, this doesn't matter because most players played every single game, but that's not the reality in the NBA anymore. So I thought that was a great point among many that she made. Yeah, absolutely. So again, make sure you check out Ariel. Yeah, go ahead. Oh, and I was also gonna say that she was saying that she doesn't like betting three three point props because of all the variation. And it's been interesting. I've been thinking a lot about like betting some three point player props. So that's probably gonna happen after. I love the randomness, right? There's nothing that's gonna repress harder than a single player's three point shooting percentage. So, so yeah. So yeah, a little bit of a different perspective there. I think that's gonna be fun. So we'll get into that in April. Everyone needs their niche. Ed has his and that's a good thing. So we'll talk about that. As you said, as we get into April, talk about more player props then. And I'm looking forward to that conversation. Let's move now into covering the future. And Ed, we're talking college basketball with you. Once again, Michigan has been a buzzy team recently. A couple of big wins. What are you seeing with them on the men's basketball side right now? Yeah, I mean, everyone is getting to the point of over excitement here in Ann Arbor about this basketball team. It was an incredible game on Sunday. Went down to Ohio State. You know, kind of struggled in the first half a little bit. Ohio State's a very good team, very good offensive team. But Michigan got it together in the second half. Hunter Dickinson was his usual brilliant self, the center of the freshman and they won. So I think things are kind of kicking into overdrive. Normally we wait until March to get excited in Ann Arbor about basketball, but it's a little bit different this year. So when you look at this team, like they're good on both sides of the ball, I do points per possession adjusted for strength of schedule on my site. Michigan's offense is sixth. Michigan's defense is 11th. And I really, it comes down to Hunter Dickinson. I mean, this guy is the real deal. He's one of the best players in the nation. And you can see the impact he makes on both ends of the court. Really great court vision, really strong in his legs. And, you know, his backup, Austin Davis is, you know, significantly shorter than him. And there's just no room protection when Dickinson exits the game. Another really interesting player for Michigan is Franz Wagner, a guy who kind of came in as supposedly someone that could shoot like a long six, eight wing. He's decided he's allergic to his own jump shot. He doesn't really want to shoot the ball, which normally is a bad thing, but, you know, he's actually been pretty good. He's in, even though he doesn't want to shoot, he's making 60% of his two point shots this year. And that's actually a rate that's better than Luca Garza, the center from Iowa. And then you have Isaiah Livers, who's a great shooter, 43% from three this year. Great defender as well. So how am I looking to bet this? So my numbers like them by about two and a half points over Iowa at home tomorrow night. That's on Thursday. Vanduul has Michigan as a four point favorite. I'm not too interested in this game. I think Michigan's going to be pretty fired up at home. I think there's reasons that Iowa is overrated because basically they've been shooting out of their mind from three point range. Luca Garza is at about 44%. Joe Wieskamp is hitting almost half of his three point shots. Those are unsustainable marks for me. I really look at, again, like I was saying, the randomness of three point shots, right? Like that's a huge thing that I look at in college basketball because that does not show up in your efficiency number, right? So that's kind of a telltale sign that, you know, even though Iowa's offense efficiency is great, you can expect some regression coming soon. But yeah, go ahead. I was going to ask a very stupid question, but I feel like Luca Garza has replaced Aaron Kraft as like the guy's been in the big 10 for like 70 years. Do you also have like this vibe around? Because I feel like he's been here forever. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, he has been here forever. I mean, you know, I still remember to last year, last season when we could go to basketball games and I was there in Chrysler when Iowa came and visited Michigan. And I think Luca Garza had like 192 points. He just killed a really good defensive center in John Teske. So, but yeah, no, he's been there. He's been there for quite a while and he's shooting lights out from three. I just don't think it's sustainable. So anyways, it's a really tough big 10 and there's certainly no way that Michigan's gonna win out the rest of the season. It's just too tough of the league. Just to give you an example, in my team rankings, which take margin of victory and adjust for sharing the schedule, Michigan State just moved up to 65th, okay? So, Sparty's kind of struggled this year, had big win over Illinois last night. There are 11 teams ahead of Michigan State in the big 10 and they're all in the top 40. Remarkable, just remarkable the strength of this league. So, in looking to bet Michigan, I'm actually thinking there might be a little bit of let down this weekend, especially they get a big win over Iowa. They go to Indiana, a team that really needs some wins. My numbers right now would like Michigan by about six. I think that means the market's at least gonna be eight, maybe more given what happens in the games that happened. Indiana has a game at Rutgers, I think that's tonight. And then obviously Michigan plays Iowa tomorrow. So, if that spreads getting towards 10, I could be getting interested. Okay, we will put you under private protection. If that does happen, given that you're in Ann Arbor, I will send people out to your house, make sure that everything's all good. But values value, Ed, you know, you can't pass values value. This is business, it's not personal, right? That's what I try to tell my Packers fan, whether it's not when I bet on the Packers, it's not because I like you, what I bet against Packers, it's not because I don't like you, it's just business. And if you bet big enough and you win, you can pay for your own security and we don't have to worry about that. So, that definitely does help as well. Now, I was looking into covering the future for myself for today, ran my NASCAR simulations. They showed a lot of value in Ryan Blaney and I don't want to intodate people with another discussion about why Ryan Blaney's a good bet. I'm gonna bet him, but I'm not gonna force you to. So, we're talking instead about some golf. We got the WGC Workday Championship coming up this weekend and I like Brooks Kepka to win that event at 27 to one. He's kind of a weird guy because Ed, you and I both love numbers and Brooks is someone who requires a bit more anecdotal thought with him, which can make him tough and that's difficult. But I think that that's being accounted for enough in this number because when Kepka tries, he can beat anyone in the world by five strokes. But he doesn't always try. He said that flat out. He says he does not practice before non-majors. That can make him pretty frustrating to bet. But he's 27 to one and I think that that's partly because of the stack fields but he has longer odds than guys like Tony Fee now. Victor Hovland and they're both outstanding golfers but seeing them at 20 when Kepka's at 27 is a bit disorient and Kepka's in good form right now. He ranks 17th in this field in strokes gained off the tee over the past 50 rounds that is according to Fantasy National. He is 20th in approach and those numbers may not seem like elite but they include a stretch over the summer where he slipped on wet concrete, heard his knee, had to get surgery, played through it for a bit and then came back and he was rusty coming off of a knee injury. That data is included inside his sample to pass 50 rounds. It seems like Kepka is over that injury now. He was fifth that he is no open back in November then finished seventh at the Masters. His past two events, we've seen Kepka gain 2.6 and 2.1 strokes off the tee. Also gained 6.1 on approach at the waste management which he did go on to win. Kepka is a good Bermuda putter which is the surface they're on this week. It's actually his best surface. He ranks 12th in the field there over the past 100 rounds. So Kepka statistically measures up especially once you account for the fact that he seems to be healthy which he was not for part of the sample. And I'd expect to be motivated for this week because the winner of this event gets $1.82 million and the one thing we know about Brooks Kepka is dude loves trophies and dude loves money. 1.82 million probably enough to get him excited for this week. He has historically played pretty well in the WGC events. He's been first and second his two most recent WGC events. Those are both the St. Jude and he says he does care about that one a bit more because that's for the kids and stuff like that. Couple of top fives in WGC's the years before that one of which was the WGC HSBC. So not just the St. Jude. So he checks a lot of boxes for me this week and I'm getting him at a pretty good number at 27 to one. He's a super volatile guy. So you could be listening to this like if let's say you listen to this on Thursday afternoon you could pull up the leaderboard on pgaTour.com and see that Kepka is five over. That's very possible. So I'm not looking at non outright markets here because those are scary for Brooks but 27 to one to win is long enough for me to bite. So I like Brooks Kepka to win this week. 27 to one for the WGC Workday Championship at FanDuel Sportsbook. Now Ed, we got to dive into anecdotes here at Brooks Kepka. Does that make you nervous as a numbers guy to back someone who requires so much additional thought beyond strictly telling you what the numbers say. I mean, not necessarily, you know, I mean, you got to know the context and the, yeah, I mean, he's clearly, I know literally nothing about golf but I know Brooks Kepka is a talented golfer. So if he's 27 to one, it sounds good to me. Please try this week, Brooks. That is all that I ask. That is all the time that we have for today here on Covering the Spread. A big thank you once again to Ariel Epstein for swinging by breaking down her process for betting NBA player props. Find her on Twitter at Ariel Epstein and check her out on the morning after on Sports Grid and Serious XM nine to noon on the East Coast. Ed, what is going on for you this week over at the Power Rig? Yeah, there was a really terrible guest on the football analytics show. It's kind of a jerk. He, you know, was a know-it-all, name dropper. Yeah, I was, I got to be the guest on my own podcast this week. And Edward E. Cross interviewed me. So it was a little bit different and we talked a lot about analytics and we talked about obviously March Madness and how to win your pool, analytics, how to make good predictions and things like that. So definitely check that out over at the football analytics show. And, you know, if you're interested in March Madness at all, the Bracket Wisdom series on the podcast is going to start on Monday. So it's a daily podcast series. Every episode is about 10 minutes and get you ready both to win your pool and also preview teams that could potentially win. So I'm getting a little help this year. Edward E. Cross is also producing episodes as well. And so it's going to be every weekday in the month of March leading up to that first day of the tournament, which we now know is Friday and not Thursday. So, so excited about that series. And yeah, please go check that out at the football analytics show. So you're doing 14 podcasts? I'm getting help doing 14 podcasts. Man, that's a lot of work. It is a bunch of them are done already. So, okay. So we're we're closing in on having everything for week one done already. So that gives you some idea. That does help. Yeah, yeah. So check out the powering.com for that. And also the football analytics show and what's the name of the college basketball one again? The the Bracket Wisdom podcast. Yeah. So Bracket Wisdom is just going to be a series on my podcast. We call the football analytics show. I've had this on other feeds before. It kind of made the most sense because, you know, people kind of one month of the year that people care about not football. So so doing it on that feed, so there's nothing different. So go check out the football analytics show. If you want to get all those episodes, you can subscribe. And if you're like me and have not heard Edward E. Gross's voice in too long of a time, make sure you listen for the episode this week as well, because I haven't got to listen to Edward in a bit. So I have missed that. And I will be certainly checking it out for that reason. Also follow at on Twitter at the power rank. I am at Jim Sonnis, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. You can also follow the FanDuel Podcast Network at FanDuel Podcast. Big thank you to Calvin Theobald, our video producer for running the video side of things here today. Thank you, Cal, as always. And thank you to everyone for tuning in. Good luck to you if you decide to dabble in the NBA player prop market or anything else this weekend. We'll talk to you once again next week. This has been covering the spread right here on the FanDuel Podcast Network.