College Basketball Best Bets Today:
The Tuesday March 4 college basketball card has 44 games spread across the country, including the start of three conference tournaments. The Sun Belt, Horizon, and Patriot tourneys all begin today and we’ve got those previewed, along with several others for this week. With more regular seasons wrapping up on Monday, more conference tournament previews will go live this afternoon and this evening.
Action tips off today at 6 p.m. ET and the last two tips will be at 11 p.m. ET, so it is a full evening of college hoops with a major variety of different conferences, with the Big 12, SEC, Mountain West, Big East, Big Ten, A-10, AAC, MAC, Sun Belt, America East, Patriot, and Horizon all in action.
Tracking sheet is here. 2023-24 for reference is here.
This article will run Monday-Saturday (not next week, see exception above). 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.
Bowling Green Falcons (-3.5, 143.5) at Northern Illinois Huskies
7 p.m. ET
Bowling Green is a team playing with a lot of urgency right now. Northern Illinois is not. The Falcons are right on the cut line right now for the MAC Tournament, which changed the format a couple years ago and now only takes the top eight teams in the conference. With two games left, Bowling Green has zero margin for error and that means taking care of business in DeKalb tonight.
Northern Illinois has already failed to qualify for the tournament, so they’re just playing out the string. They’ve been fairly competitive lately, but the lineup is taking on a different look as some young players are getting more of a chance and that may work to Bowling Green’s advantage here.
BG won 84-77 in the first meeting, winning 39-28 on the glass and 13-5 on the offensive glass. They also had 25 shot attempts at the rim to NIU’s 19, but I would expect them to have an even bigger advantage in that department tonight. The Huskies are also missing Quaran McPherson, who has missed the last four games after getting hurt on Feb. 15 against Ball State. He had scored double figures in seven straight games before getting hurt.
Bowling Green was 20-of-26 at the free throw line in the first game and should be able to get to the stripe again, as they rank second in conference in free throw rate. Northern Illinois has the highest free throw rate against in the conference.
Also, Bowling Green has held opponents to 32.8% from 3 in conference play, which ranks fourth. NIU is taking a lot of 3s right now and not showing much effort on defense, so that could allow BG to have some transition points or at least get back on offense after some one-and-done possessions for the Huskies.
Pick: Bowling Green -3.5
NJIT Highlanders at Binghamton Bearcats (-8.5, 138.5)
7 p.m. ET
The regular season finale in the America East Conference for both NJIT and Binghamton is tonight, as the Highlanders put the wraps on another disappointing year in the standings. Second-year head coach Grant Billmeier has been playing a lot of his freshmen as the season has come to a close, so he’s got a lot of guys out there learning on the job.
Binghamton has won six of their last nine, including an overtime triumph against NJIT, but that was a game in which the Bearcats were 0-for-15 from 3. What they did do, though, was have a season-high 45 shot attempts at the rim. They only made 24 of those shots, but had 18 offensive rebounds to NJIT’s 15.
In that game, NJIT senior Tim Moore had 28 points. He may be dealing with an injury because he’s only played 39 minutes over the last two games and has just six points. The last game against Albany was a blowout, so maybe Billmeier was just preserving him, but it’s been an odd end of the season for Moore.
Binghamton got blown out by UMass Lowell last time out, so their top players had a bit of a light night on Saturday. I would fully expect that they come back looking to get a little momentum heading into the AEC Tournament, where they will open up on the road as the No. 5 seed because Albany has a win over Bryant and the teams split the regular season.
Still, I think Binghamton rolls on Senior Night with several departing seniors and a NJIT team probably ready for their 5-25 season to end.
Pick: Binghamton -8.5
San Diego State Aztecs (-2.5, 131.5) at UNLV Rebels
11 p.m. ET
The line movement for this game suggests that Dedan Thomas Jr. will be back for the home regular season finale for the Rebels. Word out here in the Valley is that he’s probably going to give it a go since he hasn’t been ruled out in advance, though I think he’ll still be very limited if he does.
San Diego State is looking for some road revenge from the Jan. 18 loss at home to the Rebels. I’m optimistic that SDSU will fare better in tonight’s game. They were just 14-of-27 at the rim in the first meeting, so they left a lot of points out there on the floor. Also, UNLV had a big free throw edge due to how the game played out in the final minutes, with 11 more attempts and 11 more makes, which pretty much sums up the eight-point win.
UNLV is obviously playing well right now, but they’ve hit a soft patch of the schedule, as they’ve played Wyoming, Air Force, Colorado State, San Jose State, and Nevada in their last six games, winning five of them. This is a step up in class and likely a spot where the defense regresses a bit.
The win over the Aztecs remains their only Quadrant 1 win and they only have 3 Q1/Q2 wins on the whole in 15 games that qualify. This is a Q2 game at home and I think a bit of a wake-up call, especially with the hobbled status of Thomas as the facilitator of the offense against a good defense that leads the conference in adjusted defensive efficiency, TO%, 2P%, and 3P%.
Pick: San Diego State -2.5
