College Basketball Bets
We have 66 college basketball games to pick from today, as 16 more Division I teams play against lower-division competition. All kinds of conferences are represented today and we even have a couple of matinee games, with one at 1 p.m. ET and another at 4 p.m. ET. Otherwise, all of the college basketball action will be at 6:30 p.m. ET or later.
We do have more marquee teams in action on Tuesday than we had yesterday, including a handful of big games – Creighton vs. Gonzaga, Memphis vs. Mississippi, Texas Tech vs. Illinois, Kentucky vs. Louisville, Michigan vs. Wake Forest, and Florida State vs. Florida. Like I said yesterday, each day is another set of data points on these teams as we try to figure out what we’re working with.
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.
Drexel Dragons at Colgate Raiders (-3.5, 140.5)
7 p.m. ET
The transfer portal can be hell on mid-major and low-major teams and these two are no exception. Drexel lost Kobe MaGee (14 PPG, 5.6 RPG, 43.9% 3P%) to Florida State and Yame Butler (13.6 PPG, 4.6 RPG, 1.8 APG, 36.5% 3P%) to, ironically, Butler. They also lost leading rebounder and leading shot-blocker Cole Hargrove to Providence. Obviously somebody will pick up the mantle and score, but Hargrove was a 64% guy on 2s, Butler was a 55% guy on 2s, not to mention his 3-point prowess.
Also, PG Jason Drake transferred to Indiana. So Drexel, a team that ranked 355th in the nation in adjusted tempo last season, lost their four best and most productive players. The Dragons were just 16-of-44 on 2s in their first D-I game of the season against Saint Joseph’s with just 14 free throw attempts and more turnovers than assists.
Colgate endured some similar losses. Jeff Woodward averaged 14.4 PPG and 8.0 RPG and had a 27.1% Usage Rate, so Matt Langel’s offense went through him. While Jalen Cox did stick around after shooting 58% on 2s, he also shot nearly 50% from the mid-range and Woodward cleared out a lot of room for him. Chandler Baker and Nicolas Louis-Jacques both exhausted their eligibility after seven combined seasons at Colgate.
This is not a program with a big NIL budget at all, so they have to hope that internal options step forward and produce. While Cox was good on 2s, he shot under 29% on 3s. Parker Jones is the best shooter on the team, but, again, Woodward’s presence and the ball going through him on offense opened up a lot of clean looks. The big men on the Colgate roster are very green.
Colgate may speed the tempo up without Woodward and I think that’s why this total went up initially at open, but Drexel plays at a glacial pace. They also don’t get to the free throw line and play good defense without fouling. Woodward was the only Colgate player with over 100 free throw attempts, as the Raiders were 362nd in the nation in FT Rate (and 336th in ORB%).
Slow pace, limited second-chance opportunities, lots of lost production. I’ll take the Under here.
Pick: Under 140.5 (-108)
Bucknell Bison at Princeton Tigers (-5, 144.5)
7 p.m. ET
The Princeton offense has been replicated all over the country at institutions of learning, but it might take some time for Mitch Henderson to do that with his own Tigers team this season. The transfer of Xaivian Lee to Florida was a huge deal, but Princeton felt like they’d be okay with Caden Pierce coming back. Well, as it turns out, Pierce decided to redshirt this season and finish his degree.
Lee played 83.6% of the minutes for Princeton last season and Pierce played 82.9%. He was second in scoring with 11.2 PPG and had 7.2 RPG to lead the team. Add that to the departure of 40.5% 3-point shooter Blake Peters and that is a ton of lost production to say the least. Ivy League schools have a very hard time using the transfer portal to their benefit for obvious reasons and despite some enormous endowments, those go to education, not athletics.
As it is, even with Lee, Pierce, and Peters, Princeton finished outside the top 100 in eFG% for just the second time in Henderson’s tenure (2011-12) and struggled as they usually do to get to the free throw line and to acquire offensive rebounds. Lee was 34th in the nation in assists per game and this style of offense needs a trusted facilitator. Princeton was 12th in 3P Rate last season and 59th in Assist Rate.
In their first data point of the season, Princeton got picked apart by Akron in a 45-point loss, as they had .896 points per possession to Akron’s 1.346. While the quality of opponent drops substantially here in Bucknell, the Bison have two key returnees. One is Ruot Bijiek, who averaged 8.8 PPG and 3.8 RPG in his 28.7 minutes per game, but he only had a 15.5% Usage Rate. With 7-footer Noah Williamson (30.8% Usage Rate) and PG Josh Bascoe (24.2% Usage Rate), Bijiek will feature prominently in the offense.
The other is junior Brandon McCreesh, who shot nearly 60% on 2s and 41.5% on 3s with just a 13.1% Usage Rate. Bucknell is off to a solid 2-0 start over Delaware and Mount St. Mary’s. While Princeton is an improvement over those two teams, the Bison feel like they have a better grasp on what they’re doing right now than Princeton, who really has to thrive on offense to be successful.
Pick: Bucknell +4.5 (-108)
UC Riverside Highlanders at New Mexico Lobos (-19.5, 141.5)
9 p.m. ET
Another UC Riverside game that has seen a big drop in the total, as their game against North Dakota State five days ago dropped several points. So has this one, with the total going down about a touchdown. The side has seen a little bit of New Mexico money, but I disagree with that move.
I backed the Highlanders against North Dakota State last time out as a short pup and they won by four. It was a lot of what I expected. The Highlanders are a much bigger team this time around and they’re going to get to the rim a lot more than Mike Magpayo’s version of UCR ever did. In that game, the Highlanders were 20-of-29 on 2s.
Obviously New Mexico is a bigger and stronger team than NDSU, but East Texas A&M and UT Arlington combined to go 31-of-54 on 2s in the two games that New Mexico has played thus far. Those two teams also went 8-for-59 on 3s, leading to losses by 22 and 18. I do think that with a taller UC Riverside team, there won’t be nearly as much reliance on the 3-pointer for them in this one.
Furthermore, New Mexico, who is just 14-of-46 from 3 themselves, will probably find a lot more resistance getting to the rim. As I mentioned last Thursday regarding the Highlanders, they hired Cal State San Bernardino head coach Gus Argenal. Former UCSSB head coach Andy Newman brought a lot of his roster with him to Cal State Northridge and they had quick success with a 19-15 record, but the biggest thing was that they stiffened up defensively on 2-pointers and got to the rim more on offense than previous iterations.
Argenal wasn’t on Newman’s staff, but I presume the athletic department looked for a similar coaching mindset, so I’d expect those two things from Argenal’s team. Also, not for nothing, I guess New Mexico might be a little guilty by association here, as the Mountain West is not off to a rousing start and Jonathan Von Tobel, who wrote up the MWC for our College Basketball Betting Guide, was not impressed with the league coming into the season.
Pick: UC Riverside +19.5 (-108)
UC Santa Barbara Gauchos (-7.5, 160.5) at Sacramento State Hornets
10 p.m. ET
More style than substance, Sacramento State is ready for their first game against a Division I opponent. So far so good, I guess, for head coach Mike Bibby, as the Hornets beat lower-division Dominican 103-79 and Jessup 86-76. This is a hodgepodge of players that have talent and some recruiting pedigree, but none of them have really played together and Bibby has never coached at the Division I level.
So far, the Hornets are 26-of-56 from 3 and that is the reason why they were able to win both games by double digits. They draw a UC Santa Barbara team that was 28th in the nation in 3P% defense last season, holding opponents to 30.8%. For good measure, they also shot 38.1% from 3 themselves. But, they had some issues converting on the inside beyond Kenny Pohto, who shot 61.3% on 2s.
To counteract that, Joe Pasternack went and got Hosana Kitenge out of the transfer portal. He missed last season with a torn Achilles, but per CBB Analytics, he had a 59% TS% during the 2023-24 season, landing in the 85th percentile in PTS/40. He was also a reliable offensive rebounder (83rd percentile ORB/40) and a top-tier defender in terms of thefts (91st percentile in STL/40).
The crown jewel of the transfer portal class for Pasternack may very well be Aidan Mahaney, who transferred from Saint Mary’s to UConn and didn’t really play a whole lot. He wasn’t the most efficient 2-point threat with the Gaels, but is a 37.5% shooter from 3 for his career. Pasternack also got Marvin McGhee out of Cal State Bakersfield, where bad shot selection has ruled the roost for a while now. He’s a great rebounder and should be a better wing player in this type of offense.
I really like the Gauchos for this season and the Hornets might be a circus at the outset. This line says a lot, doesn’t it?
Pick: UCSB -7.5 (-108)
