College Basketball Best Bets Today:

We come off of the holiday break in college basketball with 33 games on Saturday. The highlight of the day is a quasi neutral-site game in Inglewood between Gonzaga and UCLA, but we also have Ole Miss vs. Memphis and a couple of strong Mountain West clashes among the top games for December 28.

As usual, I’m not looking at games until around 4 or 5 p.m. ET to give the article a little bit of lead time, which severely cuts down the Saturday slate. There are only 19 games that fall in that window, so there isn’t a ton to choose from, but I didn’t want to leave readers empty-handed for a decent-sized 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.

Marshall Thundering Herd at Elon Phoenix (-5.5, 145.5)

7 p.m. ET

Marshall and Elon shake off some rust with the first game in a week for both teams. The Herd are likely to have their hands full with a vastly-improved Elon team. Hopefully the rest has given TK Simpkins enough time to return to the lineup, as twin brother TJ has been a very nice addition to the roster this season.

What I really like about Elon is that they have a ton of rim protection. Matthew Van Komen is listed at 7-foot-4 and Nick Sherry, who is also one of the team’s better offensive players, stands 6-foot-11. Not surprisingly, Elon ranks 37th in Block% on defense per Torvik. What is most special about the defense is that Elon does it without fouling, as opponents have just a 20.6% FT Rate against them.

This is a bit of a step up in class for Elon, as they’ve played a very weak schedule to get off to an 8-4 start, but Marshall is a team that takes a ton of 3s and is only shooting 28.5% on them. I’m not sure a road game off the holiday break is a spot for that number to positively regress. And, as I already outlined, getting buckets on the interior against Elon is a task.

The Phoenix have held opponents under 45% on 2s this season and that neutralizes one of the few things that Marshall has done well on offense. Marshall has gone 0-5 in road/neutral games so far, and while four of them have been against teams stronger than Elon, the loss to lowly Southern Miss last time out was not.

Just one game for tonight, as all the long layoffs have me a little leery about how teams will play returning to action.

Pick: Elon -5.5

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