College Basketball Bets
Just shy of 50 teams will take the floor on the observance of the President’s Day holiday, as we’ve got 24 games spread across the country from 2 p.m. ET to 9 p.m. ET, with the finale of the night the massive matchup with Houston vs. Iowa State, a game that was specifically previewed here. Syracuse vs. Duke also has its own preview as part of the ESPN doubleheader.
Otherwise, we have a lot of small conferences in action, as joining the Big 12 and ACC are the Southland, MEAC, Sun Belt, Patriot, SWAC, NEC, and CAA. Those are all conferences that we’re familiar with around these parts and will be doing conference tournament previews for when that time comes in a couple of weeks. For now, the regular season keeps chugging along.
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 VSIN30 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.
Morgan State Bears at NC Central Eagles (-4.5, 149.5)
7 p.m. ET
A little MEACtion on a Monday night, as Morgan State takes on NC Central. The Bears have two losses in MEAC play thus far and one of them came against the Eagles at home on Jan. 12. That was an 89-78 win for NC Central, who was 20-of-29 at the rim in that game to pace an offense that was just 4-of-9 from 3. It was an odd night for the Eagles from a shot selection standpoint in that one, as they have a pretty normal 3P Rate, but simply didn’t shoot many there. However, they still won.
Unfortunately, NCC looks to be without leading scorer Khouri Carvey again in this one, as he has been battling something. He only played nine minutes with zero points in the loss to Norfolk State three games ago, had 21 points in 23 minutes against Delaware State, and then missed the Coppin State loss over the weekend. I couldn’t find total clarity on his injury, but the way that head coach LeVelle Moton talked about him in the postgame presser after the Coppin State loss made it sound like he’ll miss this one and then some.
Carvey had 120 of the team’s 448 shot attempts on Close Twos per Torvik. He was a 55% shooter on 2s, easily the best on the team. His 25.6% Usage Rate is also the highest on the team. From an On/Off standpoint per our friends at CBB Analytics, the Eagles’ Offensive Rating drops by 8.3 points per 100 possessions without him on the floor. But, they do seem to lock down more on defense to try and offset the scoring loss.
Without Carvey last game against Coppin State, the Eagles played to 62 possessions. They’re going to have to work for everything in the halfcourt. They had just .896 points per possession, but allowed just .928, their best mark in conference play.
This looks like an Under bet to me.
Pick: Under 149.5
