First of all, congrats to UVA on the excellent finish to their story.
But the story I care about is the story of my betting model. It was the only Cinderella story this year, and it held its ground. It was really good at picking the straight up winners (47/63, 74.6%) and against the spread (37/61, 2 Pushes, 60.7%) when picking every game. If I would have bet on $1 on every game, I could have made $1.20 on picking the right winners and $7.67 for picking the right team to cover. Picking winners isn’t impressive or profitable when they winner was heavily favored.
I had logic that tried to make “smart” bets, which is essentially where my predicted win percentage was very different than what Vegas predicted. Essentially, if I did this right, I could “beat Vegas” by only betting on the relatively sure-thing bets. I did not beat Vegas. For the “smart” bets, I would have lost $5.15 betting on the right winner but made $7.65 betting on the right team to cover. In both cases, I was better off picking every game rather than trying to pick a few games.
This gives me a clear, actionable result: bet more. Or fix the logic that makes the “smart” bets, but that seems way harder to do.
Better luck next year!