College Basketball Best Bets Today:

Just seven games are on the college basketball slate for Monday, as we are going to have some very slim pickings this week thanks to the holidays. In fact, there are a good number of teams that won’t even play again until after the New Year. So, you’ll want to think about those teams on long layoffs when they get back to work.

For now, we’ll focus on the teams that are in action. A reminder that I’m writing the article on Monday, Friday, and Saturday this week, with no write-ups on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. There are some tournaments this week, so the schedules will change. I’m actually not sure if there will be any Friday games at all, so it might be just Monday and Saturday. Either way, I wish you all some great times with your families and friends this week and Happy Holidays to you and yours. Thank you so much for reading this article and all of our content here at VSiN.

 

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

This article will run Monday-Saturday (not next week, see exception above). 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.

Cal State Bakersfield Roadrunners at North Dakota State Bison (-11, 139)

8 p.m. ET

We have a rare rematch in this game, as Cal State Bakersfield and North Dakota State play an in-season home-and-home. The Roadrunners won the first game 86-81, so why has this line gone from North Dakota State -8.5 up to -11? We already have a recent data point, but money is hitting the board on the favorite.

NDSU led that first meeting by as many as 15 and led by 13 with less than 10 minutes left in the game. Then the Roadrunners went nuclear on offense and scored 30 points in the final 9:45 of action. Bakersfield had a true out-of-body offensive experience in that game, going 16-of-23 on mid-range jumpers. This is a team with very poor shot selection year in and year out. They settle for a lot of low-percentage 2s and have only been above the national average in 3P% once in the last decade.

They’re shooting 37.1% on 3s this season, but I fully expect that number to come down dramatically as this season rolls along. They also rank 362nd in the nation in 3P Rate, so I don’t know how much it will actually benefit them to keep shooting this well, if they somehow happen to do so.

Meanwhile, North Dakota State’s offense is humming lately. They’ve scored at least 1.06 points per possession in every game since Thanksgiving and they’re the home team here with a very high 3P Rate. They’ve made at least 11 3-pointers in seven of their last eight games, including wins over Butler, Northern Colorado, and Utah Valley, who are all pretty solid teams.

CSUB also had all those made shots in the first game and only had five assists. They don’t share the ball all that well, another indictment of Rod Barnes’ offense. This will be a low-possession game, but I think NDSU makes adjustments with a better head coach in David Richman and carries the day like the line move in the face of the first result implies.

Pick: North Dakota State -11

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