College Basketball Best Bets Today:

It is a busy day in college basketball with more than 100 teams in action. We’ve got 110 to be exact, as there are 55 games across the country, including all sorts of conferences. All of the major conferences will take the floor tonight, so we have a really good spread of games, including a lot of important matchups for teams that are looking for some favor come March from the Selection Committee in terms of their at-large status.

Action begins at 6 p.m. ET with East Tennessee State vs. VMI and Holy Cross vs. Army and goes right on until a couple of East Coast ACC teams play late starts in Berkeley and Palo Alto at 11 p.m. ET.

 

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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.

Cincinnati Bearcats at UCF Knights (-3, 145.5)

7 p.m. ET

Life in the Big 12 is pretty rough this season. Per Torvik, six of his top 25 teams and five of his top 15 reside in the conference. So, it has to feel like a bit of a welcomed respite to play a team that is a bit of a step down in a relative sense. That is the case tonight for both Cincinnati and UCF.

Per Torvik, Cincinnati has played the second-toughest strength of schedule in conference action. But, UCF has played the hardest. The rest of the way, UCF plays the 16th-ranked SOS in the 16-team conference, so they could be a team to go on a bit of a heater moving forward.

In comparing conference-only stats, it’s ironic that these two teams are opposites. UCF is fifth in adjusted offensive efficiency and 14th on defense, while Cincinnati is 16th on offense and sixth on defense. But, I think that benefits UCF here. For starters, they are at home and they’re shooting 35.5% on 3s in league play, while Cincinnati is only shooting 26.6%. The Bearcats are 16th in 3P% offense and 14th in 3P% defense.

They’re also making changes to the starting lineup and trying to navigate 7-footer Aziz Bandaogo through a back injury. He’s been far less effective while he tries to work his way through that. I think UCF’s offensive success against a strong slate of conference opponents is a good sign going forward and against a team like Cincinnati that is 0-6 in Quadrant 1 games and has another one here.

Cincinnati is in the bottom 40 in Haslametrics’ “Away From Home” metric, so I like that angle in this game as well.

Pick: UCF -3

Northern Iowa Panthers (-4, 132.5) at Missouri State Bears

7 p.m. ET

We’ve got a rematch in the Missouri Valley between Northern Iowa and Missouri State. Northern Iowa won 79-68 in the first meeting and held a big free throw advantage in the game, which I think some in the betting market are holding against them. The Panthers were 22-of-29 at the stripe, while Missouri State was 7-of-10.

For me, there are other key areas I’m looking at from the first meeting that point me towards UNI. Let’s start with the fact that they were only 10-of-21 at the rim. Missouri State has allowed opponents to shoot nearly 68% on Close Two shot attempts, but managed to hold the Panthers under 50% in the first game. I don’t expect that to happen again. UNI’s shot share on Close Twos is 8% higher than Missouri State’s, so I expect that to be a factor again.

Missouri State was 11-of-22 from 3, so they shot 50%, well above their 37.6% season average. While they’re a good 3-point shooting team, they had that performance and still lost by 11. The Bears also have a 20.4% TO% on offense and are likely to lose the turnover battle again. In the first game, they lost it 13-5.

Lastly, Missouri State is 337th in the nation in FT Rate against, so who’s to say that the Panthers won’t have another big edge in attempts at the line? I am a little worried about the loss of Leon Bond III for Northern Iowa, but they just beat Bradley and scored 1.225 points per possession without him, so I think Ben McCollum can adjust.

Pick: Northern Iowa -4

Wake Forest Demon Deacons at Stanford Cardinal (-3, 138)

11 p.m. ET

We’ve seen a lot of instances of teams in new conferences struggle in the first game with long travel. Or sometimes both games a long way from home. Well, we’ve got one here with Wake Forest and Stanford, as the boys from Winston-Salem play three time zones away and have an 11 p.m. ET body clock tip-off.

Not surprisingly, Stanford is a team with some very stark home/road splits. They are ninth in the negatives in Haslametrics’ “Away From Home” metric. They lost to Wake Forest 80-67 back on Jan. 15 in the first of two games in the Tar Heel State. They beat North Carolina in the next game. They just got whacked by SMU in a 24-point loss on Saturday, but we’re seeing movement and support for the Cardinal here.

Up until that dud against the Mustangs, Stanford had won six of seven, with that Wake Forest long trek game as the only loss. Wake Forest has been playing well also, but they’ve yet to make a long trip in conference. Stanford has already made two, three if you count Dallas.

The Demon Deacons are only shooting 28.7% from 3 and they don’t get to the rim a lot. They take a lot of mid-range jumpers, something I’ve harped on a lot. I just don’t like that type of shot selection. Stanford should hold the rebounding edge in this one and they’re shooting 77.7% from the free throw line, so those are two more positives.

Pick: Stanford -3

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