College Basketball Best Bets Today:

It is not a traditional Thursday in college basketball, as we have 38 games on the board, but we’ve got some early hoops because tournament season is underway. The first game is at 11 a.m. ET between UIC and James Madison and we’ll also have a couple games at Noon, one at 1 p.m., and two at 2:30 p.m.

These neutral-site games are typically going to feature back-to-backs or multiple games in three or four days, so it’s important to look at the box scores. See how deep a team’s bench is. Are the starters playing the whole time? Did a team spend a ton of energy trying to play catch up in the second half? Was there an outlier shooting performance? The handicaps in these games are a good bit different than regular games, so make your adjustments accordingly.

 

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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.

NJIT Highlanders at Bucknell Bison (-13, 136.5)

7 p.m. ET

We go deep down the board to Lewisburg, PA for this one, as Bucknell hosts NJIT. Bucknell is 3-2 thus far with a blowout loss to Kentucky and a collapse against Mount St. Mary’s among the losses, as the Bison blew a 14-point second-half lead and ultimately lost in double overtime. But, that was a game where Bucknell was 20-of-29 at the rim and had five fewer turnovers, so it was a bit of a fluky loss.

NJIT has lost all five of their games, four of them by 12+ points. They played to a 58-57 decision against Penn to open the season and have been beaten badly by Villanova, Loyola MD, Morgan State, and George Washington otherwise.

In their five games, NJIT has scored .885, .894, .781, .982, and .951 points per possession. As bad as the offense has been, I actually have much bigger concerns about NJIT’s defense in this spot.

Bucknell’s two most efficient offensive players down low should be 6-foot-11 Noah Williamson and 6-foot-9 Ruot Bijiek. Bijiek is already 10-of-12 on 2s and Williamson is 28-of-46. Williamson has wasted some touches by going 3-of-17 from 3, but he shouldn’t have to play any kind of perimeter game here. NJIT’s 6-foot-11 freshman Malachi Arrington barely plays and nobody else in the rotation is over 6-foot-7. Bucknell should get whatever they want on the interior in this one.

And they should want a lot and should get it. NJIT has allowed a 49.8% shot share on Close Twos. Bucknell has taken nearly 41% of their shots at the rim. Given NJIT’s inefficient offense, plus a high TO%, I don’t think they’ll be able to keep pace as a big underdog.

Pick: Bucknell -13

Southeast Missouri State Redhawks (-1, 149) at Central Arkansas Bears

7:30 p.m. ET

Another very deep dive into the card for this one, as SEMO State takes on Central Arkansas. These two teams both rank in the 300s per Torvik, so this is hardly a headline matchup, but it does appear to be a competitive game based on the spread.

Central Arkansas is a team that I isolated coming into the season out of the Atlantic Sun Conference. Elias Cato is a really good player and the team brought in some really intriguing freshmen like Layne Taylor and big man Nehemiah Turner. We only have one legitimate data point for Central Arkansas because they’ve played three games against Division I opponents and two were BYU and Utah. Against Western Illinois, the Bears had .993 points per possession, but it was a game played to a crawl with just 61 possessions.

Western Illinois is a very slow team. SEMO State is not. Brad Korn’s crew has been as high as 12th in adjusted tempo. They were 79th last season, but they were a really bad team, so games slowed down on them in the second half. I would guess that Korn wants to run early in the year and just played an 80-possession game with Chattanooga and new head coach Dan Earl.

Central Arkansas has a new head coach, too, in John Shulman. In his seasons at Chattanooga tracked by Torvik, his teams were 12th, 26th, 43rd, 34th, 60th, and 90th in tempo. Now, those numbers would all be lower based on present-day pace, but his teams are not slow by any means.

SEMO State has D-I data points against Bradley, Vandy, and Chattanooga, with .847, 1.036, and 1.026 points per possession. They’ve also been porous defensively. This strikes me as an up-tempo game with a lot of jump shots and chances for run-outs. Neither team has gotten to the rim a lot yet, but the level of competition is dropping off for both. The Redhawks also foul a lot because of their pressure defense, so both teams could get more FT opportunities than they’ve had to this point.

I like two things here, and they’re sort of correlated. I like SEMO State -1 and Over 149. SEMO State is likely to have more takeaways and also protect the ball better against a very young Central Arkansas team. I also think they have a good chance at being the more efficient offense in a game with a quick pace.

Picks: Southeast Missouri State -1; Over 149

Memphis Tigers vs. San Francisco Dons (-1.5, 154)

10 p.m. ET

This is technically a neutral-site game, as it will be played at the Chase Center. The home of the Golden State Warriors seems like a good place for Memphis to take on San Francisco. This is a marquee game by every stretch of the imagination and we’ve seen a pretty strong line move on the San Francisco side.

My guess here is that bettors are simply fading Memphis’s 49.1% start to the season on 3s. I get it. They’re certainly not going to shoot that all season long. But, they are picking their spots well, as they only have a 3P Rate of 32.4%, which ranks 316th in the nation. That’s not what their offense is necessarily about. They want to use their athleticism and their bigs. Guys like Dain Dainja, Nicholas Jourdain, and Moussa Cisse are focused on getting the ball inside. Those three have combined for 13 dunks already.

Ultimately, this handicap is less about the early-season stats and numbers and more about how San Francisco doesn’t face these types of teams often. Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s are always good, but they are fundamentally sound ballclubs with great shooters and usually one good big that is efficient on both ends of the floor. Memphis is a very athletic team that wants to run the floor and press the issue by getting to the basket. Gonzaga is really the only WCC team capable of doing that.

I worry about San Francisco’s higher reliance on 3s playing in a big NBA arena like this, whereas Memphis is more likely to get to the rim. There is an 8% difference in shot share on Close Twos and Memphis has played two top-100 opponents and a top-150 opponent, while San Francisco has played one top-50 opponent and three teams that are among the bottom 70 in the nation.

Memphis was a team I really liked coming into the season and even suggested a futures bet in the College Basketball Betting Guide. I wish Tyreek Smith was still on the team, but I still think this is a very strong, and potentially underrated, Tigers team.

Pick: Memphis +1.5

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