College Basketball Bets
Conference tournament games and regular season matchups cross-pollinate today’s college basketball schedule, as things get started in the Patriot League and the Sun Belt Conference with one NCAA Tournament bid available in those events. Otherwise, we have teams wrapping up the regular season or looking to strengthen their resumes heading into next week’s conference tourney clashes.
We’re posting all conference tournament previews with at least 48 hours lead time, unless the conference has scheduled the final day of the regular season too close to that (looking at you, Horizon League). As far as today’s card goes, we’ve got 53 games on the betting board. Remember that with conference tournament games, you can get some early tip times. With the posting time for this article, it’s hard for me to hit those, but Greg Peterson (linked below) posts his article the night prior.
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.
Toledo Rockets at Miami OH RedHawks (-7.5, 162.5)
7 p.m. ET
Miami’s perfect record is once again on the line after going down to the wire with an objectively bad Western Michigan team. The Broncos are going to be one of the five teams that fail to qualify for the conference tournament and they almost tripped up the RedHawks and ruined the perfect season.
I find tonight to be a very dangerous game for Miami, even though it seems like Luke Skaljac avoided a serious injury and doesn’t actually need season-ending wrist surgery. Still, he’s likely dealing with some kind of discomfort. But, that’s not why I am concerned about this game for Miami.
The RedHawks won the first game 87-73 on the road and dominated from start to finish, as Toledo was just 7-of-19 on Close Twos and 9-of-25 on mid-range jumpers. The Rockets took a lot of bad shots in that game and I’d assume that Tod Kowalczyk makes some adjustments here. The tenured Toledo coach has his team playing a lot better now than they did earlier in conference play. They’re actually playing better defensively of late as well, which has been their problem all season long.
Toledo is a 37.5% team from 3 and that could prove to be a key factor. Also, they are the only conference member with a lower TO% than Miami. The Rockets are one of the better offensive rebounding teams in the conference and have scored well over a point per possession in every single conference game, including the loss to Miami, where they were 16-of-44 on 2s and still managed 1.048 PPP.
The pressure keeps mounting for Miami, not only to stay perfect, but also to make the NCAA Tournament, since they are hardly guaranteed a spot in the field because of their strength of schedule. It’s about survival mode, not trying to blow out opponents, especially one that can shoot the ball well and is playing better on defense after an ugly start.
Pick: Toledo +7.5
Monmouth Hawks (-4.5, 150.5) at Northeastern Huskies
7 p.m. ET
The CAA regular season finale for these two teams is an example of why it’s important to look at conference tournament formats for betting angles. Monmouth has a chance to move up to the No. 4 seed, depending on what Drexel does against a very good Hofstra team, one ranked in the top 100 for Torvik. The No. 4 seed is important because it is the cut-off for a double bye into the quarterfinals in the CAA Tournament that begins later this week.
Northeastern, meanwhile, is locked into the 13th seed in the 13-team conference. The Huskies haven’t won a game since Jan. 15. That includes an 81-68 loss to Monmouth in which the Hawks dug themselves a 12-point deficit in the first half, only to erase it and lead by as many as 19 in the second half.
Monmouth leads the conference in TO% on defense and forced Northeastern into 18 turnovers in the first game. The Huskies generally take good care of the basketball, but they didn’t in that game and Monmouth is one of the few teams that forces a lot of takeaways, so NE’s TO% on offense is probably a bit misleading. The Huskies are 13th in 2P% defense and 3P% defense, which should help a Monmouth offense that is lacking a bit. The Hawks are shooting better than 35% from 3 and that was a key factor in the first game, as they outscored the Huskies 30-12 on 3-pointers.
Northeastern already knows that they play Friday at 2 p.m. ET against NC A&T, who accounts for one of their two conference wins. The focus is on that now, if the Huskies, who have dropped 11 in a row, still have any passion left for the season.
Pick: Monmouth -4.5
Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks vs. Old Dominion Monarchs (-11.5, 157.5)
8:30 p.m. ET
First-round action in the Sun Belt Conference Tournament wraps up with this Louisiana Monroe vs. Old Dominion matchup. We’ve seen some money towards the Monarchs in this one, which I don’t quite understand. I guess it’s a revenge spot for ODU, since ULM won one Sun Belt game and it was against them back on Feb. 4. The Warhawks have been blown out a lot this season, but this doesn’t strike me as a spot where it happens.
Old Dominion is shooting better than 35% from 3 and a lot of ULM’s biggest losses have been a result of teams just bombing away from deep against them. But, while ODU shoots 3s well, their 36% 3P Rate is below the national average (39.6%) and they’re playing their first game in this neutral setting in Pensacola.
Even though the Warhawks have a lot of ugly stats, they had 18 offensive rebounds and were 24-of-41 on 2s in the first game. They even won and scored 85 points while shooting just 3-of-20 from 3. The first game was played to 74 possessions and I’d expect this one to be played slower, as the importance of this game is much greater now that we’re into conference tournaments and teams in conferences like the Sun Belt have one shot at glory.
I’m just not sure a generally mediocre to below average Old Dominion team is going to run and hide in this one. Louisiana Monroe did have the lowest FT Rate on defense in the conference, which is pretty shocking since they lost 17 of 18 games and normally you’d see more fouls for trying to extend games.
It’s just a big ask of ODU on a neutral floor with very few high-upside stats to win this game in blowout fashion.
Pick: Louisiana-Monroe +11.5
