College Basketball Bets
The second week of the college basketball season begins today with 26 games featuring two Division I teams. Another 15 teams will be in action, but they’ll be looking to avoid embarrassment against lower-division opponents. There are some pretty interesting travel spots tonight, like St. Thomas (MN) at Washington State, Santa Clara at Xavier (Cincinnati), Northern Illinois at Grand Canyon, Holy Cross at Utah, and West Georgia at UCLA.
You’ll get some prolonged road trips for teams, especially smaller schools with limited athletic budgets, at this time of the season and you’ll want to be aware of the severity of the scheduling spot, especially when elevation is involved. Those teams may struggle in the second half. Otherwise, we have a lot of games to sort through and sample sizes are getting a little bigger each day.
For more college basketball best bets today, check out Greg Peterson’s daily article.
As always, I want to give a shout-out to Bart Torvik (BartTorvik.com), Erik Haslam (Haslametrics.com), and KenPom, as they provide a lot of great data. This season, we’ve also connected with CBBAnalytics.com to access their data and I’ll be working that into my article. Use promo code VSIN for $30 off at CBB Analytics and find your betting edge.
This article will run Monday-Saturday. Lines will be from DraftKings, as they are widely available to readers. Shop around for the best prices.
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 (DraftKings) and Circa CBB Betting Splits a look for these or any other college basketball games today have your interest.
Odds from DraftKings Sportsbook at time of publish.
Eastern Michigan Eagles at Pitt Panthers (-16.5, 141.5)
7 p.m. ET
Eagles head coach Stan Heath brought a lot of players home this season. It just so happened that a lot of his portal pick-ups are Michigan natives, as guys from Detroit, Flint, and other areas decided to come back to Pure Michigan for this season. Heath seems to have a very interesting group on his hands.
Obviously Georgia State and Pitt are not comparable, but Eastern Michigan did have 42 shot attempts at the rim in their first game, including 22 offensive rebounds. Their efficiency metrics were rather poor, as they were only 28-of-62 on 2s, but they took 73 shots from the floor in a game played to 68 possessions. If nothing else, it suggests that they’re pretty athletic and are looking to attack.
Longwood was able to attack against Pitt in the last game, as the Lancers had 37 shot attempts at the rim to Pitt’s 12. Pitt won by 18, as a big free throw disparity in their favor mostly decided the game. But, Longwood had 12 offensive rebounds to 11 for Pitt. The Lancers should be a better team than Eastern Michigan, but they’re also more aggressive with pushing the tempo. Eastern Michigan probably won’t be that type of team.
With West Virginia on deck for Pitt, I think head coach Jeff Capel wants to use this game to keep working on his rotations. Obviously there’s some work to be done on defense to better protect the rim. Eastern Michigan has the chance to keep this game close, especially if they can take decent care of the ball.
Pick: Eastern Michigan +16.5 (-110)
Charleston Southern Buccaneers (-4.5, 145.5) at The Citadel Bulldogs
7 p.m. ET
We’ve got a crosstown bragging rights game here between Charleston Southern, which is ironically located in North Charleston, and The Citadel, which is located in Charleston proper near the coast. This is the second full season for 33-year-old Saah Nimley, one of D-I’s youngest head coaches, as his Buccaneers look like a team with the chance to improve this season in the Big South.
The Bucs brought back A’lahn Sumler after a lost season due to injury and also reunited the Brafford brothers, with one from Siena and one from Georgia Southern, as Devin is 7-foot-1 and should be a matchup nightmare in a conference lacking size. Reis Jones, another big at 6-foot-10, should be another matchup nightmare. That’s especially true in a game like this.
Ed Conroy’s Citadel squad doesn’t have that kind of size and this is a team that has been ranked 318, 329, and 346 in 2P% defense since Conroy took over three seasons ago. They’re also a team that takes a ton of 3s, which would be great to offset their poor defense if they could make them. Last year’s team shot just 29.2% from 3 and this year’s roster is full of poor shooters.
Sola Adebisi is one of the top returners and he shot 23.5% from 3, though he did make 61% of his 2s. Eze Wali shot 14-of-45 from the floor overall. Keynan Davis is a 28% career 3-point shooter. Christian Moore shot 34.4% from 3, but 43.4% on 2s. Iowa transfer Carter Kingsbury is probably the team’s best hope, but he was scoreless over 24 minutes against Boston College.
The Citadel looks to be one of the worst teams in the nation again, whereas I think Nimley, now a more experienced head coach, has his team’s arrow pointing north.
Pick: Charleston Southern -4.5 (-102)
Lindenwood Lions at Saint Louis Billikens (-24.5, 165.5)
8 p.m. ET
Lindenwood is getting a hefty head start for this game against Saint Louis. The Billikens, of course, are led by Robbie Avila, better known as Cream Abdul-Jabbar. But, they are a much deeper roster this season, including some help for Avila down low in the person of Paul Otieno. Avila’s 27.6% Usage Rate while battling injuries and playing almost 80% of the available minutes was a lot.
Josh Schertz didn’t really have other guys he could go to, but he does now, and that should allow the Billikens to play at the tempo that he’s looking for. Schertz was in the top 62 in adjusted tempo in his three seasons at Indiana State and the top 40 in his final two seasons when his teams were top five in eFG% and tops nationally in 2P%. Last season, Saint Louis still made a lot of shots, but finished 175th in adjusted tempo per Torvik.
In two games thus far, the Billikens have played to 77 and 86 possessions while scoring 1.192 and 1.261 points per possession. Something similar should be good enough to cover against a really offensively-challenged Lindenwood team. The Lions were 355th in eFG% offense last season, 303rd in 2P%, and 364th in 3P%. Most of the roster is made up of holdovers from last season or low-level transfers like Mekhi Cooper, who had more turnovers than assists in two seasons at Miami (OH) and is a 37% shooter on 2s.
Saint Louis hasn’t forced a lot of turnovers, but roster limitations on the depth front have been a big reason why. With a deeper team this season, Schertz can let the hounds hunt a little bit more here. This should also be a better squad on the offensive glass with Otieno’s presence to keep Avila fresh and Dion Brown from Boston College.
Pick: Saint Louis -24.5 (-115)
