College basketball best bets today
The college basketball week begins with 19 games on the betting board, as we have just four games on the main board and 15 on the Added Board. Iowa State/Houston and the Commonwealth showdown between Virginia and Virginia Tech highlight the action. Other than that, we’ve got Kansas State/Texas, William & Mary/Charleston, and a bunch of low-level conference clashes.
That doesn’t stop me from looking through the card for college basketball best bets today, but it sure would be nice to see more games, especially on a holiday and with no NBA on the docket.
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 a look for these or any other college basketball games today have your interest. Check out the Tracking Sheet for this season’s results and our college basketball home page for more CBB content.
Here is one college basketball best bet for today.
Odds from DraftKings Sportsbook at time of publish.
Northwestern State Demons at Texas A&M Corpus Christi Islanders (-11, 141)
8 p.m. ET
We head to the Gulf Coast of Texas for this Southland matchup between Northwestern State and Texas A&M Corpus Christi. The Demons and Islanders played back on Jan. 27 and it was a 79-68 victory for the road-favored TAMU CC crew, as they racked up a strong 1.196 PPP. That game was played 66 possessions, which is a little bit on the low end for these two teams. Both teams have an adjusted tempo of 68.5 possessions per game in conference per Bart Torvik.
The first meeting featured 49 shot attempts at the rim, as the teams combined for 31 makes on those high-percentage looks. There were also 57 free throw attempts, which isn’t really out of the ordinary for this conference, where a lot of teams are aggressive defensively and foul a lot.
In that first game, Texas A&M CC star Garry Clark only had five points over 27 minutes, as he got into a bit of foul trouble, but the Islanders still managed to have a good offensive showing and win by margin. I was also surprised to see that they only had eight takeaways, as they rank second in the conference in TO% on defense and Northwestern State ranks eighth in TO% on offense.
Both teams get to the rim at a pretty high rate, but Northwestern State is among the worst teams defensively in rim protection, allowing opponents to shoot 63% on Close Twos, which ranks in the bottom 30 nationally. They are also 331st in shot share against on Close Twos.
The Islanders have big advantages in the turnover department and on the glass, plus they should be able to finish off their attempts at the rim. On a night with limited options, I’ll lay the 11 here.
Pick: Texas A&M Corpus Christi -11
