College basketball best bets today

The college basketball schedule for February 16 is not big by any means, as there are just 15 games on the betting board, but it is 5x the number of games we had last week. There were only three games and I had no plays a week ago, but I’ve got college basketball best bets today as we have games across the Mountain West, A-10, MAAC, A-Sun, Ivy League, Big East, and MAC.

That’s a lot of conferences crammed into a small slate and you’ll want to pay attention to some of those little deviations the rest of the way, as some teams may be in more compromising scheduling spots than others.

 

Check the latest college basketball odds for legal U.S. sportsbooks across the country and our Vegas odds if you share a state with us here at VSiN. Also, give the college basketball betting splits a look for these or any other college basketball games today have your interest. Check out the Tracking Sheet for this season’s results and our college basketball home page for more CBB content.

Here is one college basketball best bet for today.

Odds from DraftKings Sportsbook at time of publish.

Brown Bears at Princeton Tigers (-13, 142)

7 p.m. ET

Brown and Princeton battle it out tonight, as the Bears hit the road for the first time since Jan. 27. Princeton won the first meeting 70-60, but it was a five-point game with under a minute to go, so it was closer than the final score would indicate. Princeton was 20-of-21 at the free throw line and Brown was just 9-of-11, as the Bears only had four turnovers and had 12 offensive rebounds to Princeton’s five.

This time around, Princeton is in a really tough situational spot because the Tigers have a huge game with Yale on deck tomorrow night at Jadwin Gymnasium. I think this could be a bit of a lookahead situation.

Why does that matter more in this game? Because Princeton is 330th in the nation in adjusted tempo. They play at a slow pace and any drop in efficiency on either offense or defense could make it really tough to cover the 13-point spread in a game like this. The Tigers are undoubtedly the better team, but they are 316th in the nation in ORB% and 321st in FT Rate, so they’re not getting a lot of second chances or free points.

The Tigers are last in ORB% in Ivy League play, while Brown is tops. Princeton is getting to the line more in league play due to late-game fouling, but I still don’t view that as a strong attribute for them. Brown is actually higher in 2P% offense and has a good chance at winning the turnover battle here.

All of those things make it tough to secure a blowout win, so I’ll take the head start with Brown in this one.

Pick: Brown +13