College Basketball Bets
It is crazy to think about how large the scope of college basketball truly is. There are 59 games today and that’s roughly a third of what we will see on some of the busiest Saturdays of the season. With all of these non-conference games at this time of the year, plus a bunch of early-season tournaments spread out throughout the month, the schedule isn’t like what we see during conference play.
Nevertheless, there are a lot of games to pick from and tip-offs from Noon until 10:30 p.m. ET. The games available to me for today’s article are a little more limited, as I try not to really start looking at games to write about until around 4 p.m. ET or so, in hopes of giving as much lead time as possible. There are a lot of games in the 4 p.m. window, but only 24 after that, so less than half of the card. Still, there are good bets to be made.
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.
William & Mary Tribe (-1.5, 158.5) at Norfolk State Spartans
4 p.m. ET
My favorite game of that 4 p.m. window features William & Mary and Norfolk State. W&M beat Norfolk State by 11 last season in Williamsburg. This one will be in Norfolk, but the Spartans don’t have Brian Moore Jr., who had 31 of the team’s 73 points. He’s now at Grand Canyon and Norfolk State’s lack of size means that William & Mary’s lack of size won’t be as problematic for the Tribe on the defensive end.
Per Blue Ribbon Yearbook, Norfolk State returns just 5.1% of last season’s points. Given that Brian Earl’s Tribe took 46 3-pointers in last season’s game, I’m not sure how Norfolk State can keep up if the visitors are hitting 3s with any regularity. And Earl went out and got a bunch of shooters in the portal.
William & Mary also plays a lot of pressure defense. Norfolk State doesn’t have a true, experienced point guard on the roster, so I’d expect the Tribe to get some extra possessions out of this one. In last season’s game, Norfolk actually won the turnover battle 14-13, but got outscored 48-3 on 3-pointers. Without Moore’s efficiency on the inside – he was 12-of-17 on 2s and 8-of-11 at the rim, I just don’t see how they can score enough in this one, especially if they’re going to lose the possession battle.
Earl has long been an excellent offensive coach, as he had Cornell in the top 35 in eFG% in three straight seasons and his first-year Tribe team improved by 213 spots in eFG% per Torvik year over year.
Pick: William & Mary -1.5 (-118)
East Carolina Pirates at Richmond Spiders (-5.5, 142.5)
6 p.m. ET
Maybe it was a one-year blip for Richmond, but maybe not. The Spiders went just 10-22 last season, despite being 54th in the nation in TO% and second in FT%. It was their second losing season in three years and I can’t help but think about how the portal hurts a team like this. Chris Mooney has been the head coach at Richmond since 2005. I think a lot of what he has done as a coach has been to hold onto kids for 3-4 years and help develop their games as a strong teacher whose chief skill is helping guys get better from when they get there to when they leave.
The transfer portal doesn’t allow for that. He does have a few holdovers this season, like 6-foot-11 Mike Walz and 6-foot-10 Jonathan Beagle, but he’s missing Delonnie Hunt and Dusan Neskovic. He was without Hunt most of last season, too, but that speaks to what I’m talking about. I think the margin for error for Richmond has dwindled in this era.
Mike Schwartz, in his fourth year at East Carolina, seems more equipped to roll with the punches of present-day college basketball. Think about it. He had a team last season that was 312th in 3P% on offense and 358th in 3P% on defense, allowing opponents to shoot 38.4% from deep, and the Pirates still posted a winning record. Any sort of positive regression both ways and this team has a chance to challenge for the American Conference.
Well, in Game 1, things didn’t go much better on that end, yet the Pirates still won 92-89. They were 4-for-20 from 3 and allowed Georgia Southern to shoot 9-of-22. But, what they did do was leverage bigs Reid Cason and Giovanni Emejuru, who had 31 points and 14 rebounds. Leading holdover Jordan Riley had 22 points and the team overcame a 1-of-14 debut from JUCO PG Corey Caulker.
Richmond had no semblance of a half-court offense last season. They ranked 336th in tempo and settled for a lot of 3s with a 45.6% 3P Rate. Hunt and Neskovic were two of their worst shooters, so maybe they’ll improve there, but holdovers Mikkel Tyne, Collin Tanner, and Apostolos Roumoglou were all well under 30%.
I’d say one program is trending up, one is trending down, and this game will be a microcosm of both.
Pick: East Carolina +5.5 (-112)
Queens Royals at Villanova Wildcats (-17.5, 150.5)
7 p.m. ET
After opening the season with a huge game against BYU, Villanova steps back in class here to host Queens at Finneran Pavilion. I was a Royals backer on more than one occasion last season, as Grant Leonard has done a good job in Charlotte with this team. I’ve also backed Milwaukee a lot here lately and Leonard was an assistant under Panthers head coach Bart Lundy, so obviously there’s something I like about the way those teams play.
The truth is that I’m not sure Villanova is buttoned up to beat an analytically-savvy team by this sort of number. The Wildcats only forced four turnovers against BYU and the Cougars had 36 shot attempts at the rim. Obviously Queens is not nearly as talented as BYU, but Villanova’s mix-and-match roster doesn’t seem to be firing on the defensive end yet.
Also, without Bryce Lindsay’s 5-of-9 performance from 3, Villanova would have gotten beaten even worse. Only two players were in double figures and the Wildcats settled for 35 3-pointers. Queens had five different guys in double figures in their loss to Winthrop to open the season and, while a seven-point margin might be a bit jarring when looking at this game against Villanova, it was a one-point game with 90 seconds left. Winthrop had a huge free throw edge in the contest.
In the transfer portal era, continuity is rare, but Queens brought back a lot of last season’s talent and there’s probably something to be said about that going up against a more talented team with a new head coach. At least enough to keep the game fairly close, as Villanova played to just 68 possessions against BYU. Willard’s final Maryland team played quick, but his first two Maryland teams played really slow.
It remains to be seen what kind of tempo the Wildcats will play at this season, but there are a lot of moving parts with this team and probably too many to cover this sort of number.
Pick: Queens +17.5 (-112)
