Two more conference tournaments begin Thursday, and seven AP top 25 teams are in action, resulting in a loaded late-week college basketball slate. Read on for our college basketball best bets for Thursday based on the top NCAAB odds.
The Missouri Valley and West Coast Conference tournaments get underway Thursday, while the ASUN determines who will be playing for the league's automatic bid in tonight's semifinal matchups.
Here are our college basketball best bets for Thursday (odds via DraftKings, PointsBet, Caesars, and FanDuel; pick confidence based on a 1-to-5-star scale).
Check out our top college basketball picks and our best March Madness betting sites.
Thursday's college basketball schedule and odds
(odds via DraftKings)
- Arizona (-2.5) vs. USC
- Purdue (-4) vs. Wisconsin
- Michigan vs. Illinois (-4)
Check out our best March Madness odds and Wooden Award odds.
College basketball best bets for Thursday
- Spread: Michigan +4 (-110 via Caesars) vs. Illinois ????
- Moneyline: South Alabama ML vs. Appalachian State (-190 via DraftKings) ????
- Total: Arizona-USC Under 155.5 (-110 via FanDuel) ???
- Upset: Boston University ML (+160 via PointsBet) vs. Army ???
College basketball top picks
Michigan has won three consecutive games (all by eight-plus points) and has huge opportunities with two road games at Illinois and Indiana to bolster its NCAA tournament resume further. Are we witnessing the start of a 2018-like run for the Wolverines, when they won their last five regular-season games, steamrolled through the Big Ten tournament, and finished national runner-up to Villanova? Had Illinois not bounced back from an 18-point halftime deficit at home against Northwestern, the Fighting Illini's only win since Valentine's Day would be against lowly Minnesota.
This is a four-star play as Illinois is the worst 3-point shooting team in Big Ten play (29%) and is not versatile enough to consistently crack Michigan's second-rated defense in the league, per KenPom's adjusted defensive efficiency metric. In addition, Wolverines shooting guard Kobe Bufkin has broken out down the stretch, scoring in double figures in eight consecutive games and averaging 16.9 points per game in that span.
South Alabama enters the Sun Belt tournament as one of the hottest teams in the league, winning eight of 10 games. One of those victories was a 17-point home dismantling of Appalachian State, as the Jaguars scored 1.21 points per possession and shot a blistering 64.9% (24-for-37) from inside the arc. South Alabama also did what it has all year, playing excellent defense without fouling. The Jaguars allowed the Mountaineers just 10 free-throw attempts after finishing second in the league with the fewest free-throw attempts allowed per field-goal attempt.
Bart Torvik's rankings have South Alabama as the best team in the Sun Belt since February, and we do not see it in danger of losing to an Appalachian State team that has not won consecutive games in the last month.
All sportsbooks are higher on South Alabama than the opening number of -175, but DraftKings is one of the only sportsbooks that has not reached -200 or higher yet.
Arizona is a nightmare to defend, as it is the Pac-12 leader in adjusted offensive efficiency while also playing at the league's fastest tempo. However, the Wildcats have been held to fewer than 80 points in four of their five losses and are vulnerable to teams that can limit them to the half court.
USC did as good a job defensively as one can do against Arizona in the first meeting while still allowing 81 points, as the Wildcats had one of their best 3-point shooting games of the season (12-of-24). The Trojans' elite rim protection (they rank second in the nation in 2-point percentage allowed) held Arizona to 47% shooting inside the arc, which is no easy feat given it ranks top 10 among all D-1 teams in that regard.
Conversely, USC has been held to just 68.7 points in its last three games against non-bottom-three Pac-12 teams. Arizona's mammoth front line should again pose issues for a Trojans offense that gets 26.2% of its offense from the 3-point line (308th in the country).
Boston University looks for a second consecutive road upset of Army, winning at West Point by six just eight days ago. Unfortunately, the Black Knights do not do anything particularly well defensively, ranking eighth or worse in 2-point percentage allowed (52.7%), block percentage (6.2%), and turnover percentage (16.2%). In addition, just one individual Black Knights defender has a positive Defensive Bayesian Performance Rating (DBPR), per EvanMiya.
Army makes fewer than 66% of its free throws in league play, which cost it in its loss to BU when it made 12-of-22 (54.5%). The Terriers have won five of seven, with the two losses coming on the road by a combined six points. Thus, we expect them to win at least one Patriot League tournament game for the seventh consecutive year.
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College basketball best bets made 3/2/2023 at 6:13 a.m. ET.
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