Northwestern plays its first game as a top 25 team this season and highlights a loaded college basketball slate. Read on for our college basketball best bets for Thursday based on the top NCAAB odds.
Northwestern is ranked No. 21 in the AP poll, its first time being ranked in more than two years. The other three ranked teams in action (UCLA, Gonzaga, and Saint Mary's) all hail from the West Coast, with the Gaels looking to maintain a one-game lead in the league standings over the Bulldogs.
Here are our college basketball best bets for Thursday (odds via DraftKings Sportsbook, Caesars Sportsbook, and BetMGM; 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)
- UCLA (-7) vs. Utah
- USC vs. Colorado (-2.5)
- Penn State vs. Ohio State (-2)
- Northwestern vs. Illinois (-5.5)
Check out our best March Madness odds and Wooden Award odds.
College basketball best bets for Thursday
- Spread: Utah +7.5 (-115 via BetMGM) vs. UCLA ???
- Moneyline: Weber State ML vs. Eastern Washington (+105 via DraftKings) ????
- Total: Penn State-Ohio State Over 142 (-110 via DraftKings) ????
- Upset: Michigan ML (+210 via Caesars) vs. Rutgers ???
College basketball top picks
UCLA makes one of the most dreaded Pac-12 road trips this weekend to Utah and Colorado. Last year, the Bruins swept the road trip but won both games by a combined 11 points. However, over the four year s prior, UCLA had won three of the eight games on this road trip.
Utah has won four of five at home and has the size across the board (four starters stand 6-foot-6 or taller) to bother UCLA's jump shooters. The Utes did an outstanding job defensively on Bruins leading scorer Jamie Jaquez (16.8 points per game), holding him to eight points on 3-of-11 shooting on Jan. 12, his second-lowest point total of the season. Sixteen turnovers undid Utah in the first meeting, but we expect the team to take better care of the basketball on its home court.
We do not mind paying a little extra in juice at BetMGM, who offers an extra half-point compared to its competitors at +7.
This is a curiously low line in a game involving a team with the nation's longest active winning streak. Eastern Washington has won 17 consecutive games, four by four or fewer points. One of those narro w victories was a four-point home win over Weber State on Jan. 28. The Wildcats covered as +6.5-point underdogs despite getting out-rebounded 36-22.
We expect significant positive regression on the backboards for Weber State, as the Wildcats allow the fewest percentage of offensive rebounds (21.0%) in Big Sky play. And outside of Eastern Washington forward Angelo Allegri, the rest of the Eagles shot 5-for-23 (21.7%) from 3-point range in the first meeting.
We would play Weber State on the moneyline all the way down to +100, but we expect the line to move away from it slightly throughout the day given the notoriety surrounding Eastern Washington's winning streak.
This is a meeting of the 11th and 13th-ranked Big Ten teams in terms of adjusted defensive efficiency (per KenPom). And with each team reeling (the two are a combined 2-10 in February), we expect little attention to detail on the defensive end.
Penn State enters this game on a two-game winning streak on the backs of an offense that has shot 22-for-54 (40.7%) from 3-point range. However, even during a four-game losing streak, the Nittany Lions connected on better than 40% of its 3-point attempts. Head coach Micah Shrewsberry attempts to hide his team's defensive efficiencies with low-possession games (Penn State ranks 297th nationally in adjusted tempo). Still, the Nittany Lions do not sacrifice anything on the offensive end with that style, ranking tops in Big Ten play in effective field goal percentage (56.3%).
This is a four-star play as we are not worried about Penn State's ability to score, and Ohio State still ranks 28th nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency despite losing 13 of its last 14 games
Rutgers entered this season with a 32-4 home record since 2019, with the .88 9 winning percentage being the fifth-best among Power 5 teams. However, Michigan has won four of its last five games in Piscataway, and this line is much too big, given how banged up the Scarlet Knights are now.
Rutgers will be without forward Mawot Mag (out for the year with a torn ACL) and guard Caleb McConnell could be limited after missing the last game with back spasms. Those two are Rutgers' best on-ball defenders, and the Scarlet Knights will have difficulty disrupting a Michigan offense that ranks eighth nationally in lowest turnover percentage (14.4%).
In addition, this is a three-star play as Rutgers does not have much frontcourt depth behind center Cliff Omoruyi, making defending Wolverines center Hunter Dickinson much more difficult. Dickinson averaged 20.5 points per game in two games against Rutgers last year.
College basketball best bets made 2/23/2023 at 6:21 a.m. ET.
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