College basketball best bets today

Thursday’s college basketball card is light on impact games, but there are a lot of little things that you’ll want to think about. Conference tournaments are coming and not every team qualifies, so there are some teams with more fight than others to try and get a chance at the Dance, while other teams already know that their seasons will end when the regular season does.

Those things also coincide with Senior Day, although, with all the transfers and whatnot, Senior Day has lost a lot of its luster at a lot of programs. Nevertheless, a coach may start a bad lineup to honor lightly-played seniors, which could lend itself to a good 1st Half bet. I’m also finding it really challenging to find injury information of late, so that’s part of the problem as well.

 

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For example, Samford, who had already locked up the No. 1 seed in the SoCon Tournament, sat two key scorers that had missed the previous game. I hadn’t read anything about the injuries being serious, but the game didn’t matter and they played like it. I failed to avoid a really bad situation and a bad bet.

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.

Hofstra Pride at UNC Wilmington Seahawks (-4.5, 143)

7 p.m.

It has been a long time since UNC Wilmington has played a good opponent. Takayo Siddle’s team has played the last five games against Hampton, North Carolina A&T, Elon, William & Mary, and Campbell, who rank 328th, 335th, 305th, 323rd, and 292nd, respectively, for Bart Torvik.

Hofstra was actually a top-100 team for a while before running into a really rough five-week stretch in December and January with seven losses in nine games. Since then, Hofstra has only lost twice, with a defeat by 3 at the hands of Monmouth and a defeat by a deuce against Drexel. Speedy Claxton’s team got quick revenge with a 12-point win over Drexel a week later.

The Pride are an elite offensive team, coming in 18th in 2P% and 36th in 3P%. They also take great care of the ball and have done really well defensively to protect the rim with a 54.1% FG% against on Close Twos per Torvik. Meanwhile, UNC Wilmington has allowed a 61.1% FG% on those types of shots.

Neither team gets to the rim a lot, but Hofstra is easily the better jump-shooting team, including a 36.8% success rate from beyond the arc. UNC Wilmington takes great care of the basketball, which is a big part of the efficiency metrics, but Hofstra is a better shot-making team and they take good care of the ball themselves.

I find Hofstra in better current form, as UNCW actually lost two of those aforementioned games against the soft schedule, and they’re a better team from the floor in a game where both teams will take care of the ball.

Pick: Hofstra +4.5

William & Mary Tribe at Elon Phoenix (-3.5, 143.5)

7 p.m. ET

It turns out that there are two games I like in the Coastal Athletic Association tonight, as William & Mary and Elon also caught my attention. This is a pretty simple handicap for me. Elon has been in decent form lately, as they beat Delaware and UNC Wilmington before a tough loss at Northeastern where they did cover the number. It’s no surprise that they ran out of gas against Hofstra. That was a schedule loss.

Now they’ve had five days to get back into rhythm and welcome a William & Mary team with one win since Jan. 11. They did beat Elon at home 77-70 earlier this season, but Elon had more offensive rebounds, forced more turnovers, and had more shot attempts at the rim. W&M just outscored them by 10 at the free throw line and doubled them up in attempts, so that was the difference.

Both teams are equally bad defensively on Close Twos, but Elon is more efficient when it comes to finishing at the rim. The bigger edge here for me is that Elon, who is the home team, is shooting 4.9% better from 3 and is also faring a little bit better defensively. Both teams take a ton of 3s.

Elon is shooting 34.7% from 3 in league play, but 35.5% at home. W&M is only shooting 28.8% from 3 in league play and 26.9% on the road. This should be a good matchup for the Phoenix on their home floor and a little taste of winning recently should have them eager to get back in the win column.

Pick: Elon -3.5

UT Rio Grande Valley Vaqueros at Grand Canyon Antelopes (-23.5, 152)

9 p.m. ET

Everything’s bigger in Texas, including Bryce Drew’s whining. The Grand Canyon head coach went on a rant about officiating in the state of Texas after the Lopes lost to Tarleton State and Abilene Christian last week. Drew may have had a point, as Tarleton State had 40 free throw attempts to Grand Canyon’s 17 and Abilene Christian had 36 to GCU’s 24.

This is an enormous number, but you’ve got a pissed off Grand Canyon team that is light years better than UTRGV. The Vaqueros are awful, but still play at the 16th-highest adjusted tempo per Torvik, so this should be a game with a lot of possessions.

The other element here is that UTRGV has already been eliminated from WAC Tournament consideration, so their season is over. They may care when they get back home, but probably not much on this trip to Grand Canyon and Cal Baptist.

The Vaqueros have lost their last three games by 19, 11, and 28 as injuries have really taken a toll, with second-leading scorer Hasan Abdul Hakim out for seven of the last nine games and Ahren Freeman out since effectively Jan. 20. JJ Howard has also missed the last four games.

It seems only fitting that Grand Canyon draws a Texas team here and I think they’re out for blood.

Pick: Grand Canyon -23.5

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