College basketball best bets today

We’ve got 136 college basketball games on Saturday, as we’ll see the regular season wrap up for some conferences and some huge games for the conferences that are still over a week away from the start of their conference tournaments. That means plenty of games to pick from for college basketball best bets today.

Conference tournament previews will start rolling out today with the Atlantic Sun and Sun Belt, as those two tournaments start Monday and Tuesday, respectively. It’s a great time of year for college hoops and we’ll have wall-to-wall coverage here at VSiN with all 32 conference tournaments, plus our March Madness Primer and Betting Guide.

 

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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 are three college basketball best bets for today.

Odds from DraftKings Sportsbook at time of publish.

Columbia Lions at Penn Quakers (-3.5, 150)

7 p.m. ET

We’ve got an Ivy League matchup here that features two of the three teams that have been eliminated from conference tournament contention. Both teams played last night, as is customary in the Ivy, so we’ve got a back-to-back here, but I don’t think either team will be worried about playing much defense.

To be honest, neither team has really worried about playing defense most of the season, which is why they are 6-18 combined in league play. I’m looking for a high-scoring affair in this one, as the need to play defense is diminished even further with nothing at stake.

Columbia comes in shooting 38.3% from 3 in Ivy League play and they’re also one of the better offensive rebounding teams in this conference. Since essentially getting eliminated from tournament competition, they’ve allowed 1.278 and 1.250 points per possession, while posting good offensive numbers in the losses to Yale and Princeton.

Penn is just bombing away from 3 at this point. Over their last three games, they have attempted 93 3-pointers and have actually made 40 of them. Penn’s scored 1.342, 1.098, and 1.127 PPP in the last three games.  They’re just firing away at will and continue to play atrocious defense. They’ve allowed at least 1.028 PPP in each of their last 11 conference games and many are far worse than that.

I’m just assuming these two teams are firing away from deep and aren’t too worried about the defensive details.

Pick: Over 150

UT Rio Grande Valley Vaqueros at Cal Baptist Lancers (-12.5, 135.5)

8 p.m. ET

We’ve seen this line jump up a little bit with Cal Baptist hosting UT Rio Grande Valley, which is hardly a surprise. I laid 23.5 with Grand Canyon on Thursday night and UTRGV lost by 29. In the last three games, the Vaquero have scored .861, .785, and .718 points per possession, as they’ve dealt with a lot of injuries. They are simply playing out the string on the season.

They’ve also been getting shredded defensively with regularity, as they’ve allowed at least 1.152 PPP in five of their last six games. This is a UTRGV team that has allowed a 60.2% FG% on Close Twos and a shot share against of 43.3%. Cal Baptist has actually allowed one of the highest shot shares against, as they do everything they can to run teams off the 3-point line.

I do worry a little bit about Cal Baptist’s defense here, but they held UTRGV to nine shot attempts at the rim in the first meeting, which was a 63-54 win in a game that they basically led wire-to-wire.

The Lancers have huge advantages on the glass in this one and are also a much better 3-point shooting team. They led by as many as 15 in the final five minutes of the game before putting it in cruise control. 

Cal Baptist really needs this win, as they are close to the cut line for not making the WAC Tournament and they will be an underdog at UT Arlington and at home against Grand Canyon, so they can’t screw around here.

Pick: Cal Baptist -12.5

Southeast Missouri State Redhawks at Southern Indiana Screamin’ Eagles (-7, 145.5)

8:30 p.m. ET

Another team playing out the string is SEMO State. The Redhawks have already been eliminated from Ohio Valley Conference contention. Southern Indiana is close to the cut line for the field, so they badly need to win the regular season finale here. They lost to Lindenwood the other day, even though the Lions really had nothing to play for, so we’ll see if they can rally here.

SEMO State has been tinkering with the starting lineup in a big way, but it does appear that something is going on with leading rebounder and second-leading scorer Josh Earley, who only played seven minutes in Thursday’s loss to Morehead State. The score may have been a big part of that, but he only scored eight points in the loss to UT Martin five days prior, so something seems to be up.

Southern Indiana gets to the rim at a higher rate (40%) and SEMO State is one of the worst rim protection defenses in the nation with a 62% FG% against and a 42.6% shot share against. Southern Indiana is also the better 3-point shooting team and the better squad on the glass. Bart Torvik actually has this game closer to -10, so I’ll be looking for Southern Indiana to hold up their end of the bargain with a lot to play for.

Pick: Southern Indiana -7

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