College Basketball Bets
Early-season college basketball tournaments are slowly getting underway, as evidenced by the 11 a.m. start time in St. Petersburg, FL between Central Michigan and South Alabama at Eckerd College. That’s also the only game of the day in that event to “put the entire focus of college basketball on St. Pete”. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Anyway, there are 15 other Division I vs. Division I college basketball games today, so those are the ones that will be my focus. We’ll have 46 games tomorrow, so a lot more to pick from and Saturday featured 73 games, so a lot more to pick from then.
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.
Loyola Chicago Ramblers at Wichita State Shockers (-4.5, 151.5)
7:30 p.m. ET
Loyola Chicago and Wichita State are both well-rested for this one, as the Ramblers last played on Sunday and the Shockers on Saturday. The Ramblers lost a tough one to North Texas 64-62 in a neutral setting in the Chicago suburbs. It’s been a tough start in general for the Ramblers, who lost as a big home favorite to Mercyhurst and then had that setback against the Mean Green.
The optics of the Mercyhurst loss are quite terrible, given that they were a 21.5-point favorite against a team that just joined Division I prior to last season. It was a bad defensive performance for sure, but Mercyhurst does play a matchup zone and coaches are way more worried about figuring out their own teams than gameplanning for what opponents are doing. There are some new pieces and some old pieces on this Ramblers roster and Drew Valentine is trying to figure out how they work together.
But, I do really like 6-foot-10 Miles Rubin, one of last season’s holdovers. Kymany Houinsou is off to a slow start and so is Justin Moore, who leads the team in Usage Rate, but has only gone 13-of-36 from the floor. Deywilk Tavarez was brought in exclusively to shoot 3s and he’s 7-of-22 thus far. I don’t think of Wichita State as a very good team on either end of the floor and this should be a step down from North Texas.
Paul Mills, and Isaac Brown before him, has taken a mid-major powerhouse and turned them into a very pedestrian team. Mills had an offense last season that ranked 286th in eFG% and 339th in 3P%. In the two Mills seasons, the Shockers have been 312th and 290th in TO% on defense. Their half-court defense has been fine, but they haven’t gotten extra possessions to help out an inefficient offense.
Kenyon Giles, Karon Boyd, and 7-foot-2 Will Berg were all solid transfer portal pulls and all three have produced thus far, but they’ve also played UNC Asheville and Prairie View A&M in two games. Those teams have gone 6-of-31 from 3 and Asheville took 30 mid-range jumpers in that opener, as they’re trying to figure out their offense with some losses from last season.
Wichita State had one of the lowest 3P Rates in the country last season, but managed to have a mid-range shot share that ranked in the bottom 100 nationally, so their shot selection is questionable at best. I think that’s an advantage for the Ramblers, as Rubin can actually match up with Berg and force the Shockers into a lot of low-percentage shots.
Also, contextually, everybody knows that the Ramblers lost to Mercyhurst and haven’t looked the part, but this line is moving down anyway.
Pick: Loyola Chicago +4.5 (-102)
Southern Miss Golden Eagles at Grambling State Tigers (-1.5, 150.5)
7:30 p.m. ET
I love this game and will be looking to play on both of these teams as the season goes along. Jay Ladner completely overhauled his staff, bringing in assistant coaches that worked under Chris Beard, Kermit Davis, and Billy Gillespie, so we should expect the Golden Eagles to be much more aggressive in their defensive pursuits. Gillespie’s Tarleton State Texans have been in the top 11 in TO% in four of the last five years and were 37th the other year. Beard only has one season outside the top 36 in TO%.
One interesting development thus far against Southern Miss is that Buffalo and South Carolina absolutely bombed away from 3. Combined, the teams shot 73 3-pointers in the two games, which Southern Miss lost by 6 and by 4. So far, 62.4% of the shots against Southern Miss have been 3s. That is a huge departure from last season, when the Golden Eagles were 165th in 3P Rate against. I don’t know if that was just a matchup-based thing or how Southern Miss plans to play, but it was interesting to say the least.
I really, really like Grambling’s hire of Patrick Crarey II, who took an objectively bad Florida A&M program and made them relevant in the SWAC last season. He adopted the Rim & 3 strategy on offense and it paid dividends, as the Rattlers had the 63rd-lowest rate of Farther Twos as defined by Torvik.
In this game, though, I think Southern Miss just has better talent and their aggression on defense should force Grambling into a lot of turnovers. Both of these rosters are very new, but Southern Miss has better resources. They should win the battle on the glass with better size. They’ve also shot really well on 2s, but simply haven’t defended 3s well enough. Grambling certainly doesn’t have the shooters that South Carolina has. Buffalo had a career 36% 3-point shooter go 7-for-14 and drop 32 points, so that was a bit unlucky for the Golden Eagles.
I do really like both teams and I do respect the line move here that suggests Southern Miss was incorrectly favored overnight, but I do think their talent level is just higher than Grambling’s. Plus, I think they win the possession battle with more ORebs and more turnovers. Southern Miss dealt with a lot of injuries and what I think was a lot of drama last season. Ladner has better recruiters on staff now and a brand-new roster.
Pick: Southern Miss +1.5 (-108)
