The regular season ends for several power conferences and the first NCAA tournament ticket will be punched Saturday, and we offer our top college basketball player props and best bets based on the best college basketball odds.
Saturday is the final day of the regular season for the Big East, Big 12, ACC, Pac-12, and SEC, and three of those conferences' regular season titles have been claimed (UConn – Big East, Arizona – Pac-12, Tennessee – SEC).
North Carolina can win the outright ACC title with a win over rival Duke (Duke would split with UNC with a victory), while Houston holds a one-game lead over Iowa State for the Big 12 title.
The March Madness odds and Final Four odds will also fluctuate with the results of Saturday's marquee matchups.
Elsewhere, the first NCAA Tournament ticket will be punched by the day's end, as Litt le Rock and Morehead State meet for the Ohio Valley Conference championship.
To supplement our North Carolina vs. Duke prediction, here are our college basketball player props and best bets for Saturday (college basketball picks based on odds via our best March Madness betting sites; pick confidence based on a 1-to-5-star scale).
Saturday's college basketball best bets
- Baylor Scheierman Over 16.5 points vs. Villanova (-125 via bet365) ????
- RJ Davis Over 28.5 PRA vs. Duke (-110 via DraftKings) ????
- Georgia Southern +13.5 vs. Appalachian State (-102 via FanDuel) ???
- UConn-Providence Under 140.5 (-110 via Caesars) ????
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Sat urday's college basketball schedule and odds
(Odds via Caesars)
- Creighton vs. Villanova | Spread: Creighton -1 | Total: 137
- Kansas vs. Houston | Spread: Houston -8 | Total: 137.5
- Kentucky vs. Tennessee | Spread: Tennessee -7.5 | Total: 167
- Marquette vs. Xavier | Spread: Marquette -3 | Total: 158.5
- Baylor vs. Texas Tech | Spread: Texas Tech -2 | Total: 147.5
- North Carolina vs. Duke | Spread: Duke -5.5 | Total: 150.5
- UConn vs. Providence | Spread: UConn -10 | Total: 140.5
- Arizona vs. USC | Spread: Arizona -8 | Total: 160
Saturday's college basketball player props
Scheierman had an off-shooting night in a 68-66 home loss to Villanova earlier in the season, going 5-for-17 from the floor and missing all seven of his 3-point attempts. However, he still finished with 16 points, largely because he went to the free throw line nine times, his most attempts in a Big East game this season.
Villanova does a tremendous job limiting paint touches, ranking seventh in Haslametrics' near proximity attempt rate. So while that may lower Ryan Kalkbrenner's offensive ceiling, we also expect it to mean more perimeter shots for Scheierman, and for him to shoot closer to his season-long 37.7% 3-point average.
Scheierman has averaged 23 points over the last two games, and another 20-point performance could be in store against the Wildcats.
DraftKings and bet365 charge the same -125 in juice to back the Over.
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Davis leads the ACC in scoring at 21.5 points per game, which conveniently matches his projected points total for this game. If Davis scores true to his average, he would need only eight or nine combined rebounds and assists to go over this projected total, and he has 10 and 12 combined rebounds and assists in his last two games, respectively.
North Carolina vs. Duke games are always fast-paced with plenty of possessions, which should give Davis plenty of opportunities to accumulate statistics. This is especially true since he plays the second-highest percentage of minutes and takes the fourth-h ighest percentage of his team's shots in the ACC.
Davis totaled a modest 24 PRAs in the first meeting, but he also went an uncharacteristic 3-for-11 inside the arc, and we expect him to play a much better game in what could be his last time in Cameron Indoor Stadium.
All of our top sports betting sites are in unison with the O/U on Davis' point total at 21.5, but we would not advise that as a wager if one cannot find this “player combo” prop at their best sports betting sites. The enticing part of the line is how much Davis is stuffing the stat sheet in other categories.
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Saturday's college basketball game picks
Entering the weekend, No. 1 seed Appalachian State has the second-best odds to win the Sun Belt tournament (+180 via DraftKings), as James Madison is considered the favorite thanks to the more difficult path the Mountaineers face. The first potential landmine is Georgia Southern in Saturday's quarterfinal matchup.
Eagles head coach Charlie Henry is a Nate Oats disciple, and the 3-point volume with which they shoot is the ultimate weapon for an upset of this magnitude.
While a No. 9 vs. No. 1 matchup will always be considered an upset, few would be shocked by a Georgia Southern outright victory, given how close the two regular-season meetings were between these teams. The two games were decided by 11 total points, despite the Eagles shooting a combined 13-for-37 (35.1%) from 3-point range, which is lower than their league-best season average of 37.3% in Sun Belt action.
One of the biggest reasons Georgia Southern proved such a formidable opp onent is that the Mountaineers struggled with Tyren Moore's dribble penetration, as he averaged 26 points in the two meetings. Perhaps Appalachian State's top 20 near-proximity field goal percentage defense, per Haslametrics, will figure out a way to keep Moore at bay.
We are banking on another big day from Moore, and a much maligned Eagles defense all season is rounding into form, allowing an average of 73 points per game during a three-game winning streak.
All of our best sports betting apps are in unison with a spread of +13.5, but FanDuel is the only shop charging less than the standard -110 juice to back the underdogs. Should this line move at all, we would play it down to +13.
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The motivation levels in theory are on opposite ends of the spectrum between these two teams entering this regular-season finale.
UConn has already clinched the Big East regular season title and is the tournament favorite by the Big East odds. UConn is coming off a big win over a top-10 Marquette team and has almost assuredly earned a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament.
We would not blame Danny Hurley's bunch if they were more focused on next week's Big East tournament, which they have not won since 2011, than taking care of business against a desperate Providence team whose bubble hopes are hanging by a thread.
With a healthy Donovan Clingan, only three teams have held UConn to 74 or fewer points at home this season, and Providence is one of them. While UConn's adjusted offensive efficiency ranks sixth in the country over the last four games (since February 20) per Bar t Torvik, it has averaged just 77.3 points per game in that span, lower than its Big East-leading season average of 81.4 points per game.
This number has shot up from an opening total of 138.5, but we are not scared off by the aggressive line movement toward the Over. We are getting the best price and number at Caesars, as FanDuel has the lowest total of all of our best sportsbooks at 139.5.
College basketball best bets made Saturday at 6:24 a.m. ET
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