College Basketball Best Bets Today:
The pickings are once again very slim on Tuesday, as we only have four college basketball games on the card. We had three on Monday, all from the CBI. Today, we get two in the NIT and two in the CBI, with games at 7 p.m. ET and 9 p.m. ET only. Chattanooga at Bradley and North Texas at Oklahoma State are two the NIT tilts, while Illinois State vs. Incarnate Word and Florida Gulf Coast vs. Cleveland State are the CBI contests at the Ocean Center in Daytona Beach.
The NIT games are still on campus sites for this round, with two more games coming up tomorrow. Then the tournament moves to Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis for the final three games. We still have the College Basketball Crown in Las Vegas coming up with 16 teams in action beginning March 31.
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.
Chattanooga Mocs at Bradley Braves (-3.5, 153.5)
7 p.m. ET
With only four games, it can be tricky to find a good bet, but hopefully I’ve got one here with Chattanooga and Bradley. This total has already shot up 4.5 points from the open, even though Bradley’s Darius Hannah suffered a season-ending injury in the Braves’ win over George Mason. Hannah averaged 12.4 PPG and led the team with 5.9 RPG while shooting 58.4% from the floor.
With Hannah injured and Zek Montgomery opting out of the tournament, the Braves are missing two of their better interior presences. In fact, Hannah had 138 of the team’s 606 Close Two shot attempts and was a 77.5% shooter on those attempts. So that will likely push Bradley into taking more 3s, but that may not be a bad thing against Chattanooga.
The Braves are shooting nearly 40% from 3 and Chattanooga is a terrible 3-point defense. The Mocs can score, though, and now Hannah’s defensive presence is gone on the interior. The Mocs have adopted the analytics of shot selection that most teams employ, as they have a Rim & 3 Rate over 83%. I would anticipate that they get inside effectively without Hannah and that they continue to chuck from 3. Bradley pushes teams into 3s, so hopefully that leads to some more scoring.
I think we could also see Bradley’s tempo increase a little bit without Hannah. They’ve never played fast under Brian Wardle, but 2022 is the last time Hannah didn’t play much and that has been the quickest pace for Bradley since 2016-17.
In two NIT games, Chattanooga has 1.171 and 1.313 points per possession and they’ve given up 1.107 and 1.087 on defense. I would expect we see 50+ combined 3-point attempts in this one. Bradley’s 57 3-point attempts in two NIT games are tied for the most they’ve had over back-to-back games since Feb. 5 and 8, so they’re feeling good on jumpers and are also back on their home floor tonight.
Pick: Over 153.5
