College basketball projections and best bets
The grind of the college basketball season continues today after another massive weekend slate of games. Due to family obligations, I wasn’t involved with college hoops betting as much as I normally am for those big slates, but I’m back in full swing this week and hope to kick off this week with a winner or two. Unfortunately, today’s slate leaves a little to be desired, which is to be expected of a Monday slate at this point in the season. A quick record update: men’s basketball is sitting at 52-48-1, while my women’s record is 96-67, for a season total of 148-115-1(56%). Follow me on X (@TShoeIndex) for today’s women’s best bets.
Compare my odds to the college basketball odds (Vegas odds) and also take a look at the college basketball betting splits for additional info.
These “Projections and Best Bets” pieces will be occurring a few times per week on VSiN.com now that we’ve gotten through bowl season, so buckle up and get ready to take advantage of having the T Shoe Index at your disposal from now on.
As a refresher, the T Shoe Index (TSI) is my proprietary rating system that I use for college football, NFL, men’s and women’s college basketball, and WNBA. It is a tempo and opponent-adjusted rating that allows us to answer the question, “How many points would team A be expected to score and allow vs Team B”, based on a myriad of statistical factors.
Here are the TSI projections for today, January 22nd:
How to read this sheet: the “TSI Projected Spread” is the projected point margin based on TSI ratings. If the number is positive, that indicates Team 1 is projected to win by that margin, if the number is negative, that indicates Team 2 is projected to win by that margin.
Men’s
| Team | Team | TSI | TSI O/U |
| Alcorn State | Prairie View | -0.1 | 149.9 |
| Arkansas-Pine Bluff | Bethune-Cookman | -0.4 | 163.5 |
| Cincinnati | Kansas | -0.4 | 146.0 |
| Colgate | Lehigh | 9.9 | 144.4 |
| Florida A&M | Mississippi Valley State | 10.5 | 138.6 |
| Hofstra | Stony Brook | 4.0 | 145.1 |
| Houston Christian | New Orleans | -3.2 | 152.4 |
| Idaho State | Montana State | -5.2 | 138.6 |
| Incarnate Word | Nicholls State | -4.9 | 151.8 |
| Jackson State | Texas Southern | 6.0 | 140.0 |
| Lamar | Texas A&M-Commerce | 9.4 | 149.5 |
| McNeese State | Texas A&M-Corpus Christi | 7.2 | 139.4 |
| Montana | Weber State | 0.9 | 142.4 |
| North Carolina | Wake Forest | 9.2 | 153.7 |
| Northwestern State | Southeastern Louisiana | -14.2 | 141.6 |
Bets:
Southeast Louisiana -5.5
Cincinnati +8.5
Women’s
| Team | Team | TSI | TSI O/U |
| Alcorn State | Prairie View | 7.9 | 120.0 |
| Arkansas-Pine Bluff | Bethune-Cookman | 9.6 | 142.1 |
| Baylor | Kansas State | 1.9 | 131.0 |
| Colgate | Lehigh | 2.3 | 135.8 |
| Florida | Mississippi State | -1.0 | 142.3 |
| Florida A&M | Mississippi Valley State | 5.8 | 134.6 |
| Idaho State | Montana State | -2.8 | 116.3 |
| Jackson State | Texas Southern | 25.7 | 122.9 |
| Montana | Weber State | 10.6 | 131.9 |
| Seton Hall | St. John’s (NY) | 8.7 | 116.2 |
| UCLA | Utah | -4.2 | 148.8 |
