College Basketball Best Bets Today:
It is a decent college basketball slate for a Monday, as we’ve got 22 games and some pretty strong matchups. Three from the Big Ten and a mammoth Big 12 battle between two Torvik Top 15 teams should make for some interesting viewing this evening. That game is particularly intriguing with unranked Arizona bet into a home favorite against third-ranked Iowa State.
The rest of the slate is made up of small-conference matchups, including a lot of SWAC, MEAC, and Southland hoops, including a really good one between McNeese and Texas A&M Corpus Christi. Action begins today at 3 p.m. ET with Eastern Illinois vs. Little Rock to start up today’s 22-game slate.
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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.
Nicholls Colonels at UTRGV Vaqueros (-2.5, 148.5)
7:30 p.m. ET
Nicholls hits the road to take on UT Rio Grande Valley in this one, as we’ve got a couple of solid teams coming together. I think one is more solid than the other and that is Nicholls. The Colonels rank second in conference-only adjusted offensive efficiency and fifth in conference-only adjusted defensive efficiency. Meanwhile, UTRGV is ninth and 10th, respectively, in those categories.
Nicholls has the lowest TO% in conference games at 15.6% and UTRGV is 10th in TO% on offense and 12th on defense out of 12 teams. My expectation here is that the Colonels are able to get some extra possessions in the turnover department and should be able to capitalize on those opportunities.
The Vaqueros are a strong offensive rebounding team and lead the conference in 2P%, but Nicholls is second in 2P% defense and third in 3P% defense. Even with all those offensive rebounds, UTRGV only has a shot share on Close Twos of 34.9%, which is nearly 11% lower than Nicholls. The difference has been that the Colonels are only finishing at a 49.7% clip on those high-percentage shots, which ranks in the bottom 10 nationally.
Lastly, UTRGV has lost to Southeastern Louisiana, Texas A&M Corpus Christi, Lamar, and McNeese, beating only bad teams and Stephen F. Austin by 3 in a game where the Lumberjacks were 0-for-11 from 3. They’ve struggled against the better half of the conference and that’s where Nicholls resides.
Pick: Nicholls +2.5
