College Basketball Best Bets Today:

It is a huge day for college sports with all of the football action plus 62 games on the basketball side of things. This is our last full Saturday of college football and we’ll slowly start to see basketball dominate the day, but the two share the spotlight on November 30.

Lots of early games today, but as per usual for Saturday, I don’t start looking at any games for the article prior to 4 p.m. ET in hopes of giving some lead time to the breakdowns.

 

***Top College Basketball Betting Resources***

*Join thousands of other sports bettors and unlock access to picks, public betting splits data, & the VSiN live video broadcast by upgrading to VSiN Pro. Grab your first month for less than $10.*

We have a ton of content rolling in here at VSiN on a daily basis, so you may want to bookmark our College Basketball Articles page so you can find this and also Greg Peterson’s top CBB bets of the day.

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

This article will run Monday-Saturday. 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.

Marist Red Foxes at Lehigh Mountain Hawks (-1, 139.5)

7 p.m. ET

We’ve got MAAC vs. Patriot League hoops as Marist and Lehigh come together. These two teams have not found much success getting to the rim, as Marist has a 29% shot share on Close Twos and Lehigh has a 30.1% shot share. Lehigh has played a very tough schedule to this point, but they were still 226th at 35.3% last season in shot share on Close Twos per Torvik.

Both teams are limited in the height department, so that’s part of the problem. These are two teams that have taken a 3 over 40% of the time, so there could be some volatility in a game like this, but Marist plays at one of the slowest tempos in the nation and Lehigh has slowed it down this season, playing to their opponents’ tempo.

Marist should also control the game on the glass, as Lehigh is one of the worst offensive and defensive rebounding squads in the nation. That should allow Marist to clean the window and play the game to the pace that they want, since Lehigh is not an aggressive defense when it comes to forcing turnovers.

Pick: Under 139.5

UC Irvine Anteaters (-9.5, 128) vs. Towson Tigers

10 p.m. ET

Action continues in Lethbridge, Alberta with the Western Slam Tournament, which has been dominated to this point by UC Irvine. The Anteaters have wins over Kennesaw State by 17 and Kent State by 12, as they have allowed .790 and .623 points per possession thus far. They had an off night offensively against Kent State in the 51-39 win, going just 2-of-15 from 3 and they are just 8-of-38 from 3 in two games…that they’ve won by double digits.

This Towson offense is quite poor, coming in ranked 346th in eFG% offense. The UC Irvine defense is 10th in eFG% defense, second in limiting offensive rebounds, which is usually a strength for Towson, and seventh in 2P% defense. They’ve allowed opponents to shoot just 41% on 2s. Towson is 337th in the nation in 2P% at 42.7%.

Towson does play at a very slow pace, which does make it hard to blow them out, but their offensive inefficiency in a game played to probably 65 or 66 possessions is a problem. Also, the Tigers have zero answer for 7-footer Bent Leuchten on defense. Furthermore, the Anteaters are shooting 84.2% at the free throw line thus far.

UCI has won every game but one by double digits and that’s a game where Weber State was 13-of-25 from 3. That is the only game in which they’ve allowed more than .887 PPP. I can’t imagine Towson has an offensive explosion and the Anteaters offense is really solid.

Pick: UC Irvine -9.5

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR