College basketball best bets today

The final regular season Saturday of the college basketball season features 102 games, which is a little bit lighter than we’ve seen over the last several months. Conference tournaments are taking place in several conferences and the regular season wraps up for just about everybody else, as there will be just eight regular season games on Sunday.

There are some early games, as we typically see on Saturday, so I’ll avoid those in the interest of lead time, especially with a late start to the college basketball best bets today article.

 

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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.

Oral Roberts Golden Eagles vs. South Dakota State Jackrabbits (-7.5, 148.5)

7 p.m. ET

The Summit League Conference Tournament rolls along today with a couple of games, headlined by the matchup between Oral Roberts and South Dakota State. The Jackrabbits are playing their first game at the Sanford Center in this tourney, while Oral Roberts is playing for a second straight day after a 12-point triumph over South Dakota yesterday.

In that game, ORU had 1.196 points per possession, their best offensive performance since they beat South Dakota State back on Jan. 27. For a team that had been struggling a bit on offense, it was a big performance in an unfamiliar setting.

I think both teams will score in this game today. Defense is usually pretty optional in the Summit. In 16 regular season conference games, Oral Roberts allowed over a point per possession in 13 of them. In the two games against SDSU, the Golden Eagles allowed 1.231 and 1.196 PPP.  However, they also scored 1.269 and 1.068 PPP, so they were able to hold their own on offense.

The two head-to-head meetings finished with 155 and 169 points. I know things technically should tighten up a bit here with the stakes, but South Dakota State is a great offensive team and everybody in this league knows that you have to outscore the opposition to have success. The Jacks shot 57.2% on 2s and 36.5% on 3s in league play. They led the conference in 2P% defense and still allowed opponents to shoot over 50%.

I’m expecting scoring tonight.

Pick: Over 148.5

UConn Huskies (-9.5, 140.5) at Providence Friars

8 p.m. ET

The Big East regular season wraps up for these two teams on Saturday evening, as UConn heads to Providence. The first game was a nine-point win at home for UConn, but the box score for that game gives me the belief that Providence will be able to keep this one a little bit closer.

UConn had 36 free throw attempts to 26 in the first game and Providence actually only shot 50% from the stripe, going 13-of-26 on free throws. They were also only 4-of-18 from 3, but did hold UConn to 4-of-23 from deep. What I also like about the first game is that Providence had 29 shot attempts at the rim to 22 for the Huskies.

In a game that will likely be played to around 66 or 67 possessions, I would expect Providence to get enough good looks to have some offensive success and keep this one competitive. In the first game, UConn was +13 in free throw points with that nine-point victory. The rest of the stat sheet was pretty similar.

Pick: Providence +9.5

Cal State Bakersfield Roadrunners at Hawaii Rainbow Warriors (-7, 134)

1 a.m. ET

We’ve got a late one out on the island, as Hawaii hosts Cal State Bakersfield. From a scheduling standpoint, this is pretty brutal for Bakersfield. This essentially amounts to a standalone road game, as they played at Cal Poly a week ago. If Fullerton loses to UC Irvine in the 10 p.m. ET tip, then Bakersfield will qualify for the Big West Tournament in Las Vegas. If not, then the game will matter to the Roadrunners, but Irvine is a nine-point favorite.

I’m kind of assuming that Irvine wins, so I don’t think this game will mean anything to Bakersfield. If it does, I still don’t like the matchup at all. Hawaii has a 3P Rate of 42.7% and they’re shooting 33.3% on 3s. Bakersfield has a 3P Rate of just 26%. The Rainbow Warriors are actually shooting better on the road than at home from 3, but I could certainly see them outperforming their season average in the home finale.

Hawaii has also only allowed a 25.4% 3P Rate against. So I don’t really see Bakersfield making many 3s. They aren’t an efficient team around the rim and actually shoot a very high rate of mid-range jumpers, whereas Hawaii’s shot share on mid-range 2s is under 20%. Bakersfield is at 39.2%. I don’t like that offensive strategy at all.

This is a good matchup for Hawaii, who ranks in the top 85 in both eFG% offense and defense, while Bakersfield is 321st in eFG% offense and 118th in eFG% defense.

Pick: Hawaii -7

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