College Basketball Best Bets Today:
We start the third week of the college basketball season with 22 games on the betting board. Gonzaga and San Diego State meet in the most notable game of the evening, as a lot of games feature major programs as big favorites against much smaller programs. Mondays are typically pretty slow during the season, except for the major network games once college football steps aside. That’s the case tonight.
Keep an eye out this week and next for some early-season tournaments where teams will be playing back-to-back days or sometimes three games in three days. We’ve got several tournaments starting on Thursday that fit precisely what I’m talking about. For now, let’s look at Monday.
Tracking sheet is here. 2023-24 for reference is here.
This article will run Monday-Saturday. Lines will be from DraftKings, as they are widely available to readers. Shop around for the best prices.
Shout-outs to Bart Torvik, Erik Haslam, and Ken Pomeroy, as those are my three primary resources for information when handicapping.
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.
Odds from DraftKings Sportsbook at time of publish.
Colgate Raiders at NC State Wolfpack (-12, 150)
7 p.m. ET
Two teams that lost a ton of production from last season’s squads get together in Raleigh tonight. Colgate has been the gold standard of the Patriot League, but they’re off to a slow start with a loss at Drexel and a loss to Syracuse, beating SUNY Canton for their only win. NC State hasn’t played anybody good yet, beating USC Upstate, Presbyterian, and Coastal Carolina.
They scored 82 points against Coastal without making a 3-point shot, so that was a rather impressive offensive performance. The Wolfpack are off to a 64% start on 2s, but are shooting under 29% from 3. They don’t take a lot of 3s, but get to the rim a lot, so that should open up some shooting lanes as we go forward.
Head coach Kevin Keatts is still looking to see who his go-to scorers will be, but Brandon Huntley-Hatfield was a nice transfer add from Louisville and so were Dontrez Styles from Georgetown and Marcus Hill from Bowling Green.
Colgate has some substantial losses that they didn’t really replace. Keegan Records, Ryan Moffatt, and Braeden Smith are all gone. Those three were the only ones for Colgate last season that played over 50% of the available minutes. This is a team with virtually no depth and only one reliable big in Jeff Woodward.
Matt Langel is a great head coach, but he lost two guys to graduation and another to the portal that are very difficult to replace at a school like Colgate. I think the offensive struggles we’ve seen so far are going to continue, as the Raiders are shooting 49% on Close Twos and under 27% from 3.
Pick: NC State -12
North Texas Mean Green at McNeese Cowboys (-4.5, 131)
7 p.m. ET
McNeese was one of the top stories in the nation last season, as Will Wade led his team to 30 wins and an NCAA Tournament berth. The Selection Committee exacted one more piece of revenge against Wade, who was fired from LSU for a slew of violations. They paired him up with an underseeded Gonzaga team in the first round and the Cowboys got beat by 21.
The straw that stirred the drink for McNeese was Shahada Wells. He was the senior leader of the ballclub, a 39% 3-point shooter, and had a high usage rate with a better than a 2:1 assist-to-turnover ratio. He’s gone and McNeese has had a negative assist-to-turnover ratio in both Division I games this season.
In fact, in the loss to Alabama, McNeese only had three assists total. Wells had 3+ assists in 28 of his 33 games played last season, along with leading the team in points per game with 17.8. They miss him and they miss him badly. Against a North Texas team that plays an annoyingly aggressive defense and a very slow tempo, frustration is going to be a huge factor for McNeese here in terms of trying to create shots.
While McNeese lost to Alabama by just eight points, they trailed by as many as 21 in the second half, so don’t let the final score fool you. It was a game that was never in doubt. Now, UNT is not a top-10 team like Alabama, but they are a team that is very experienced and just held Minnesota to .894 PPP and 9-of-25 on 2s.
I think North Texas’s defense paired with McNeese’s early offensive issues without Wells gives the Mean Green a great chance to cover here.
Pick: North Texas +4.5
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