College Basketball Bets
Even I had to do a double take with the Friday college basketball card because we have seven games on the board. That’s it. Seven games. We don’t even have some of the usual suspects like the MAAC or the Ivy League. We have the Big East, MAC, Big 12, A-10, and Mountain West, so four conferences represented across seven games. That’s pretty cool, but it’s still a little bit of a shock to the system.
But, when you think about it, we have 145 college basketball games on Saturday, so then it starts to make a bit more sense. Like I said, though, there are certain conferences that typically play on the final day of the work week that are not this week. We’ll just work with what we have and try to find something that looks good.
For more college basketball best bets today, check out Greg Peterson’s daily article and Tyler Shoemaker’s TSI Projections/Best Bets on weekdays.
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 Dayton Flyers (-15.5, 142.5)
8:30 p.m. ET
Having barely survived a weekend in Dayton back in my college days, it could be a raucous and rowdy environment on a Friday night with students wrapping up their first full week of the spring semester. But, this looks like a “win and get out” game for Anthony Grant and the Flyers.
These two teams have already played and it was one of Loyola’s best efforts of the season, as they only lost by two points to this Flyers team. That 70-68 game back on Jan. 3 was much closer for comfort than Dayton would have liked, but they’ve got some things going on right now. Leading assist man Jordan Derkack missed the last game and 7-foot-1 game-changer Amael L’Etang hasn’t played since Dec. 20.
Dayton doesn’t run very deep, with the exception of the injuries, so this is a game where Grant may look to limit the minutes for his key horses like De’Shayne Montgomery and Javon Bennett, who fouled out last game against Duquesne.
Despite some poor defensive efforts, the Ramblers have been relatively competitive in their five conference games. They won at Rhode Island and also beat a good Santa Clara team in their final non-conference game before the A-10 slate started. They just lost by eight points to a really good George Mason team.
They, too, are beaten up a bit without Xavier Amos, Justin Moore, and Kayde Dotson. To have that kind of effort against George Mason was pretty impressive. In a game with injury concerns both ways, I would anticipate that this one is played at a pretty slow pace. The first game was played to 67 possessions and I could see a slower tempo in this one, which should allow the Ramblers to keep it tighter, especially against a Dayton team that struggles to score anywhere but at the rim. The Ramblers are allowing just a 51.9% FG% on Close Twos.
Pick: Loyola Chicago +15.5 (-102)
