College Basketball Best Bets Today:
We have seven days worth of games left in the NCAA Tournament and four straight as the Sweet 16 gets underway on Thursday. Four games today, four games tomorrow, four games across Saturday and Sunday, two games next Saturday, and then one game to crown a champion. At least we still have the College Basketball Crown to keep holding on to the season.
These four games have been knocked around quite a bit and every one of the totals has been bet to the Over as of Thursday morning. We’ve also seen the favorite grow in two of the four games, as action takes place on each coast tonight with games in Newark, NJ and San Francisco, CA.
It’s a great time to sign up as a VSiN Pro subscriber, which you can become for the low cost of $9.99 for the first month. We have previews of every NCAA Tournament game coming your way as things progress.
Tracking sheet is here. 2023-24 for reference is here.
This article will run every day with CBB games through the end of the season. 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.
Arkansas Razorbacks vs. Texas Tech Red Raiders (-5.5, 148.5)
10:09 p.m. ET
All of the games have some measure of betting interest for me, including BYU and Maryland, but officially, my favorite play after really digging into the card is Texas Tech. The Red Raiders are not reliant on getting to the rim, as they have a shot share on Close Twos of just 29.4%. The best defensive attribute, at least in my opinion, for the Razorbacks is how they can defend the interior with 6-foot-11 Jonas Aidoo, 6-foot-10 Trevon Brazile, and 7-foot-2 Zvonimir Ivisic.
The Razorbacks are a top-10 team in Block% on defense thanks to those three big guys. However, they’re still not a very good team on the glass and that is an area where Texas Tech could absolutely gain an advantage and get some second-chance buckets.
Texas Tech is the better distance shooting team. They’re shooting 42.8% on Farther Twos per Torvik compared to Arkansas at 40%. It’s not a huge difference, but there is a big difference from 3, as the Red Raiders are shooting 37.1% from 3 and Arkansas is shooting just 32.4%. To me, Arkansas has had a favorable path to this point. Kansas was a mess all year and the three bigs could neutralize Hunter Dickinson. St. John’s was an outstanding defensive team, but not a very good offensive team. They were this year’s Houston.
Texas Tech is a shot-making team that takes great care of the basketball and ranks in the top 100 in ORB% for and against. Kansas was an okay shot-making team that struggled on the offensive glass. St. John’s just couldn’t shoot well enough and went 2-of-22 from 3 and 19-of-53 on 2s, despite having a great showing on the offensive glass.
I like this Texas Tech team a lot and think they match up very well with Arkansas, especially if the Razorbacks keep up the 8-for-43 pace from 3 that we’ve seen thus far.
Pick: Texas Tech -5.5
