College Basketball Best Bets Today:

We have 47 games on the college basketball schedule for Friday and several strong matchups. The night will be highlighted by Alabama vs. Purdue, but there are a lot of compelling games otherwise, including Villanova and Virginia, two teams that desperately need some positive vibes. Ohio State takes on Texas A&M in College Station and Arizona heads to the Kohl Center to face Wisconsin.

The college hoops season still isn’t two weeks old yet, so we’re still doing a lot of fact-finding missions about teams, as they do the same themselves. I’ve typed up and deleted a few games that won and some games that lost this week, as confidence can be tough to come by with so much turnover and so many unknowns. It’s just a matter of trying to pick out the right ones from the list of candidates.

 

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Tracking sheet is here. 2023-24 for reference is here.

This article will run Monday-Saturday. Lines will be from DraftKings, as they are widely available to readers. Shop around for the best prices.

Shout-outs to Bart Torvik, Erik Haslam, and Ken Pomeroy, as those are my three primary resources for information when handicapping.

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.

Odds from DraftKings Sportsbook at time of publish.

Tulane Green Wave at Furman Paladins (-4.5, 154.5)

7 p.m. ET

I took a shot at fading Furman a week ago and they beat Belmont 76-74 in Nashville. But, I don’t think that was a bad bet. Furman happened to go 16-of-35 from 3, allowing Belmont to shoot 27-of-43 on 2s. Furman just had one of those shooting nights and you tip your cap.

I still believe this is a team that will suffer some setbacks and I could see one tonight against Tulane. Ron Hunter has a transfer-heavy lineup that hasn’t been tested yet, but I think Hunter is a solid coach, even though he hasn’t had great results with the Green Wave. I also believe he has a better roster this season, including the two highest-ranked freshmen he has recruited in his career in KJ Greene and Kam Williams.

He brought in Kaleb Banks from Indiana, who is off to a great start going 16-of-25, including 7-of-13 from 3. Rowan Brumbaugh is a big point guard out of Georgetown. It is a young roster, but a very talented one.

Furman is off to a 3-0 start, but Belmont is the only good team they’ve faced. Like I wrote about last week, the Paladins dropped nearly 80 spots in eFG% offense and 70 spots in adjusted offensive efficiency with the losses of Mike Bothwell and Jalen Slawson. Now they’re without JP Pegues and Marcus Foster, who were the two highest players by Usage Rate last season.

I think I was on the right track last week, but Furman shot well from 3. Tulane should be better on defense and also does a better job of forcing turnovers.

Pick: Tulane +4.5

Georgia Bulldogs (-2, 155.5) at Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets

8 p.m. ET

The Bulldogs take the short trip from Athens to Atlanta for this rivalry game between SEC and ACC foes. The Yellow Jackets have the only loss between the two teams and it came against a common opponent, as North Florida beat Georgia Tech 105-93 on November 10 and then lost to Georgia 90-77 on November 12. The teams also have a common opponent in Texas Southern, with Georgia Tech winning by 19 and Georgia by 28.

That’s more of a footnote than a justification for liking the road favorite here. Shot selection plays a big role. With the two common opponents, Georgia has a shot share on Close Twos of 49.2%, while Georgia Tech is at 33.2%. The Yellow Jackets under second-year head coach Damon Stoudamire are taking a lot of 3s. They’re also taking more mid-range jumpers than the Bulldogs.

You will come to find that shot selection is a big part of the equation for me. I like teams that get to the rim. They create free throw attempts, put the other team in foul trouble, and get those higher-percentage shots. But, I also like teams that can shoot 3s. Georgia Tech is shooting about 1% better thus far, but taking a whole lot more of them. Georgia was 128th in the nation in 3P% defense last season.

On the whole, I think Georgia has better scorers this season than they had last season, in what was Michael White’s second year. Big man Asa Newell is the second-best recruit White has ever rangled and he spent the bulk of his coaching career at Florida. In fact, he got Newell out of Montverde Academy in Florida as a top-20 prospect in the nation. He’s going to be a menace on the offensive glass.

Georgia Tech doesn’t have great answers down low for Newell or Clemson transfer RJ Godfrey.

Pick: Georgia -2

Washington State Cougars vs. Iowa Hawkeyes (-5.5, 170.5)

8:30 p.m. ET

If offense is your thing, this looks to be the game for you tonight. We’ve got a total bet up into the 170s between Washington State and Iowa. We’ve also seen some Iowa money to push this game out to 5.5 and I completely agree with the line move. In fact, I think this number should be higher for the neutral-site game in Moline, IL.

Nothing against Wazzu, who is off to a great start for David Riley, but he has six players that have played 60% or more of the available minutes to this point and two of them were playing Power Five basketball last season. One, Nate Calmese, was originally at Lamar before transferring to Washington, where he barely played. Isaiah Watts played 22.3% of the available minutes for Washington State last season.

This is a massive step up in class for the Cougs roster. Most of these guys were at Eastern Washington with Riley last season. EWU was a really good team and shined nationally in a lot of categories, but very few teams play defense in the Big Sky. EWU lost by 35 to Utah, 11 to Ole Miss, 12 to Cincinnati, 25 to Stanford, 10 to Wazzu, and 28 to USC. 

Fran McCaffrey brought back a lot of talent in Iowa City and brought in one notable portal addition from the mid-major ranks in Drew Thelwell, who was the point guard for a Morehead State team that went 26-9 and made the NCAA Tournament.

This is a large step up for Riley’s crew and I think it’ll be a wake-up call.

Pick: Iowa -5.5

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