College Basketball Best Bets Today:

For a holiday, it is a pretty busy college basketball day, as we have 21 games on the slate. All of them are part of tournaments, as there are no on-campus games on Thanksgiving. A few games fall early as well, so I’ve skipped past those to find the games with a little bit of lead time.

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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.

Butler Bulldogs vs. Northwestern Wildcats (-2, 134.5)

7 p.m. ET

Butler and Northwestern will spend the holiday in Tempe, as they’ll play in the Arizona Tip-Off Cactus Division. We’ve seen some interest in Northwestern by the betting market here, but I’m not seeing the reason why.

NW has a quality loss to Dayton and five wins otherwise. Butler has a non-quality loss to Austin Peay, but a nice win over SMU, as they play away from home for the first time this season. I guess that could be something of a factor, as Thad Matta takes his team to the desert, but I like the trendline for Butler and I’m worried about Northwestern.

Without Boo Buie, Northwestern’s TO% on offense already jumped from 13.4% to 15.6% and they really haven’t played a tough schedule thus far. All of their offensive numbers across the board have declined in a noticeable way. For a team that plays a lot of low-possession games, that is worrisome to me.

Northwestern takes a lot of mid-range jumpers, but ranks 351st in 3P Rate per Torvik, so I’m not looking at that as a positive. They shot 39% from 3 last year, but are off to a slow start at 31.7% and Collins doesn’t seem to have nearly as many shooters and doesn’t have Buie to get guys open for uncontested looks.

Butler’s 3P Rate is nearly 15% higher than Northwestern’s, so they have the chance to score in 3s rather than tough 2s. Butler is also one of the nation’s best in rim protection defense thus far, holding opponents to just 44.4% on Close Twos. These are two solid coaches, but I think Matta has brought substantive change to Butler, while I think Northwestern is a team that will drop in the rankings as the year goes along.

Pick: Butler +2.5

Towson Tigers vs. Kent State Golden Flashes (-1.5, 131)

9:30 p.m. ET

While other teams are playing in Florida, the Caribbean, or Mexico, Towson and Kent State are in Lethbridge, Alberta for the Western Slam Tournament. The Tigers and Flashes are the later of the two games, with Kennesaw State and UC Irvine playing earlier.

The two teams have pretty similar bodies of work thus far. Towson is 4-2 with losses to Saint Mary’s and South Carolina. Kent State is 4-1 with a loss to Auburn. Towson has the best win between the two teams, a home triumph over James Madison.

These are two low-possession teams. Towson is 352nd per Torvik in adjusted tempo and Kent State is 311th. So, don’t expect a ton of offense in this game. These are also two poor offensive teams to this point, but the Golden Flashes look a bit more promising to me. Both teams returned a lot of last season’s core, but the Tigers are missing Charles Thompson, who was a menace on the glass and the team’s best interior option.

This is not a particularly efficient jump-shooting team, so not having Thompson’s rim protection and scoring ability will make it tough against well-structured teams like Kent State. The Flashes are struggling at the rim and on jumpers themselves, but guys like VonCameron Davis and Morgan Safford have track records of being efficient scorers and I think Kent State is a team likely on the rise soon.

Pick: Kent State -1.5

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