College basketball best bets today

Yesterday was a really busy and special day for us here at VSiN. My writers absolutely crushed it. We posted 21 articles, including 10 college basketball conference tournament previews. I can’t say enough about the team I get to work with as the Managing Editor. We’ve got a great group of committed, knowledgeable people and I wanted to give them a public shout-out for everything that they do to bring our readers the best betting content in the business.

As usual, I’ve left off the really early games in the interest of lead time. I’ll try to get the article together earlier for Wednesday and Thursday with so many matinee start times. There are fewer games to pick from now for the college basketball best bets today article and as Tyler Shoemaker noted in his college basketball projections article, it looks like the market is really tightening up with so few games. Tread carefully at this time of the year.

 

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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 two college basketball best bets for today.

Odds from DraftKings Sportsbook at time of publish.

Manhattan Jaspers vs. Iona Gaels (-8, 137)

7:30 p.m. ET

First-round action from Atlantic City in the MAAC Tournament features Manhattan and Iona, a rematch of a game that the Jaspers won by 17 points just five days ago. This Gaels group is much different with the loss of Greg Gordon, who left the program six games ago. The Gaels are just 2-4 SU in that span, but did win two of their last three games entering the tourney.

The biggest shift I’ve noticed with Iona since Gordon left is the pace that they’ve played. Tobin Anderson knew his team was light on scorers. Gordon has 21 of the team’s 39 dunks, 186 of the team’s 712 Close Two shot attempts, and had a Usage Rate of 30.2%. After playing games to 73 and 70 possessions against Rider and Mount St. Mary’s, the Gaels have slowed down considerably.

Their last four games have been played to 66, 64, 62, and 60 possessions. Three of them were blowouts, so that plays a factor, but I think Anderson actively wants to slow down the tempo because he doesn’t really have efficient scorers with Gordon gone. Gordon was also the team’s top offensive rebounder, so his absence hurts on the offensive end there as well.

Now we go to a neutral setting and Iona is more of a jump-shooting team without Gordon. Manhattan always was, as they have a shot share of just 31.5% on Close Twos this season. Both teams chuck a lot of 3s. Iona is shooting 35.3% on them and Gordon only took 43 of them at 32.6%, so it wasn’t because of him. I think the Gaels settle for a lot of 3s here.

Manhattan takes a lot of them, but they’re only shooting 31.2%. A neutral site probably won’t help much there. I think this game is played to a slower tempo, especially with higher stakes, and I expect a lot of missed jumpers.

Pick: Under 137

Nicholls State Colonels vs. Texas A&M Corpus Christi Islanders (-4.5, 137)

9 p.m. ET

Nicholls was an easy winner for us last night, covering 5.5 comfortably in a 21-point win over Texas A&M Commerce. They’ll draw the other Texas A&M satellite school tonight with a battle against the Islanders in the semifinals. These two teams split during the regular season, while Nicholls getting revenge at home on Feb. 12 after a 10-point loss on the road on Jan. 20.

In that 10-point loss, Nicholls was just 9-of-28 on shots at the rim, which is a complete outlier performance for any team. I like that they’ve played a game at the Legacy Center here to get out some of those jitters and get a feel for the floor. I also like that they won it in blowout fashion, so nobody had to exert an extreme amount of energy. Eight players played at least 16 minutes and nine players played in total.

Texas A&M CC actually has a 46.9% shot share on Close Twos and Nicholls has allowed a 41.2% shot share on those types of attempts, so that concerns me a bit. That said, Nicholls has a 40.1% 3P Rate and has shot 37% from deep, while Texas A&M CC only has a 29% 3P Rate and a 30.2% success rate on those shots. Nicholls also had the best 3-point defense in the Southland Conference.

I just don’t think that the gap between these teams is all that big. Texas A&M CC split with Nicholls and lost twice to McNeese State. Nicholls lost twice to McNeese State, split with TAMUCC, and lost to Lamar twice. Those are the measuring stick games in this league and the results are suggestive that these teams are pretty close.

With the situational factors and the outlier in Nicholls’ big loss, I like them to keep this one competitive and maybe even steal it.

Pick: Nicholls +4.5

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