College Basketball Bets
Night 3 of the college basketball season and we have more teams making their 2025-26 debuts. It is a wildly inefficient market right now, not only from a betting standpoint, but also from a results standpoint. For example, I liked Under 144.5 on Georgia Southern and East Carolina. The game had over 180 points in a game played to 80 possessions with 71 total shot attempts at the rim and 71 free throw attempts with 32 offensive rebounds. Not things I handicapped in that one, but it’ll happen early in the season.
Even though we’re only a couple of days in, I still have some learnings. One is that all of these new teams might be in much better shape offensively than defensively. The starters have all been playing against bench guys on offense and bench guys on defense in practice and now they’re facing other teams’ starters. So even though all of the personnel is wildly different, it seems like learning how to play defense together will be harder for most of the teams.
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 Monday-Saturday 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.
Delaware State Hornets at Temple Owls (-17.5, 154.5)
7 p.m. ET
There is a world in which Temple is one of the most improved teams in the country this season. Considering they went 17-15, I don’t necessarily mean by record, which should improve, but by a lot of their metrics. The losses of two 41% 3-point guys in Jamal Mashburn Jr. and Steve Settle is undoubtedly a big deal, but I think the roster is more of what Fisher wants and he was able to put some nice transfer portal talent around his freshmen and sophomores from last season that stuck around.
Per CBB Analytics, Fisher brought in four players who ranked in the 63rd percentile or higher in PTS/G and six players who were in the 61st percentile or higher in REB/G. Add in a highly-touted sophomore in Aiden Tobiason, who played a lot more than expected last season and junior leader Zion Stanford and I think this team will improve on both ends of the floor.
While they lost a couple shooters, this is a team that shot just 55.1% on Close Twos and they have better finishers playing more minutes now. Temple also jumped from 219th in adjusted tempo to 95th last season per Torvik and I think they’ll move even quicker without a 6-foot-10 guy like Settle so valuable to the offense.
According to this year’s Blue Ribbon Yearbook, Delaware State lost 86% of last season’s scoring and returns zero players that averaged at least five points per game. Last year’s team overperformed a bit, as they were 302nd in 2P% and 347th in 2P% defense. They were 275th in eFG% offense and 313th in eFG% defense. A high TO% helped, especially in conference play, but Temple looks like a team that will take good care of the ball.
Also, the Hornets were 364th in the nation in 3P Rate last season at just 20.7%, so they try to make their hay inside and I think that will be hard against a more athletic, much deeper Temple team.
Pick: Temple -17.5 (-108)
North Dakota State Bison at UC Davis Aggies (-3.5, 143.5)
9 p.m. ET
North Dakota State wraps up a two-game roadie to open the season with this visit to UC Davis. The Aggies beat lower-division Menlo in their opener, while NDSU shot just 6-of-31 from 3 in a two-point loss to Oregon State. The Beavers seem to have had a friendly whistle in this one, as they had 15 more free throw attempts accounting for a +12 differential at the stripe. Even though North Dakota State had 25 shot attempts at the rim to Oregon State’s 15 and 11 offensive rebounds to the Beavers’ five.
It was a strong effort from the Bison overall and they had 17 assists on 26 made shots. Also, their only notable transfer, Markhi Strickland, had 17 points on 7-of-10 on 2s. He was just 3-of-6 at the line, but he was a huge interior presence for the Bison, who should absolutely shoot better than 6-of-31 most nights from deep.
The Bison only had a 30.8% shot share on Close Twos last season, but did shoot 63.7% on them, so Strickland should uphold that type of conversion rate, but also give the team a stronger interior presence. They shot a 3-pointer on 53.6% of shot attempts, so they will be a high-variance team. At least they played a legitimate opponent to get their feet wet.
UC Davis had the 30th-highest “Farther Two” shot share per Torvik and I hate that type of offensive strategy. They don’t get to the rim a lot and shoot too many low-percentage mid-range jumpers. In the win over Menlo, UC Davis had a 30.4% TO% and shot 13-of-27 from 3, two outliers that won’t happen most nights for them. They do force turnovers at a high rate, as they were 13th in the nation last season in TO%, but also 327th in TO% on offense while shooting 45.1% on 2s and just 32.2% on 3s. They were 335th in the nation in eFG% and their only notable transfer was PG Brayden Fagbemi from Central Arkansas, who is more of a distributor than scorer.
Most of the Aggies’ go-to guys will be holdovers from last season’s 15-17 team. David Richman is a pretty decent coach, as the Bison have had some strong seasons on his watch and have had winning records in all but two of his 12 seasons at the helm. I’ll take my chances with what I think is the better team and the better coach. It’s not like there’s a big travel issue here coming off of the game in Corvallis on Monday.
Pick: North Dakota State +3.5 (-112)
Eastern Washington Eagles at Loyola Marymount Lions (-8.5, 154.5)
10:30 p.m. ET
After playing at a snail’s pace in two seasons ago, Stan Johnson’s team picked it up and played around the national average in tempo again last season. That was about what they did in 2022-23, but I think they’re going to move faster this season.
Johnson picked up two very good scorers in the transfer portal in Nakyel Shelton (Eastern Illinois, 17 PPG) and Tanner Thomas (Sacred Heart, 14.8 PPG). Per CBB Analytics, those two were in the 92nd and 91st percentile, respectively, in PTS/40 last season. Neither guy is terribly big, but they were both good distance shooters. Thomas was more aggressive in getting to the rim, but they should both push the offense a bit here.
We know that EWU head coach Dan Monson has no problem pushing the pace. He didn’t have the horses for it last season, his first at Eastern Washington, as the team was 194th in adjusted tempo per Torvik. His previous seven Long Beach State teams were all 47th or higher in adjusted tempo and six of them were in the top 30.
Isaiah Moses from UC Riverside (83rd percentile PTS/40) is the most noteworthy transfer for the Eagles, but they have a lot of returning experience and this is a senior-laden group. The Eagles got UCLA to speed up to 71 possessions in the first game of the season, an 80-74 loss, but a game where EWU had a 60.2% eFG%. They were 22-of-29 on 2s against a very tough offense.
LMU played a lower-division school in California and won 137-54 in a game played to 85 possessions. Tanner Thomas didn’t play in that game and I’m not sure why. I dug for some info this morning, but didn’t find anything. Hopefully he plays tonight. Even if not, there’s enough scoring and should be enough pace in this game.
Pick: Over 154.5 (-110)
