A whopping 13 conference tournament finals are on tap for Saturday, and we offer our top college basketball player props and best bets for Saturday based on the best college basketball odds.
By the end of the day, the number of teams earning automatic bids to the NCAA Tournament will grow from 14 to 27, meaning nearly 40% of the March Madness field will be known. Most of the championships in the power conferences will be between teams that have played for consecutive days, so bettors should factor that into their wagers. Other leagues, like the America East, afforded their teams three days off before Saturday's final.
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
- Yuri Covington Over 10.5 points vs. Vermont (-130 via DraftKings) ????
- Jimmy Clark Over 3.5 assists vs. St. Bonaventure (-120 via bet365) ????
- Saint Joseph's +2.5 vs. VCU (-106 via FanDuel) ????
- Cornell +2 vs. Yale (-115 via Caesars, DraftKings, bet365) ???
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Saturday's college basketball schedule and odds
(Odds via bet365)
- UMass Lowell vs. Vermont | Spread: Vermont -7.5 | Total: 134.5
- New Mexico vs. San Diego State | Spread: San Diego State -2 | Total: 141.5
- Iowa State vs. Houston | Spread: Houston -5 | Total: 121
- Marquette vs. UConn | Spread: UConn -9 | Total: 141
- UTEP vs. Weste rn Kentucky | Spread: Western Kentucky -3.5 | Total: 145
- NC State vs. North Carolina | Spread: North Carolina -9 | Total: 145
- Oregon vs. Colorado | Spread: Colorado -2.5 | Total: 143.5
Saturday's college basketball player props
UMass Lowell and Vermont meet for the second consecutive year in the America East final, as the Catamounts beat the River Hawks 72-59 last year. However, when the lights were brightest with an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament on the line, UMass Lowell guard Yuri Covington was just one of two River Hawks in double figures, scoring 10 points in 13 minutes off the bench. Covington was held scoreless on six shot attempts in the first meeting between these teams this year but exploded for 15 points in the rematch. He ranks 18th in the conference in KenPom's offensive rating metric and given that he plays more than 70% of the team's minutes this year, we expect him to sco re 11 or more points for the eighth time in the previous nine games.
Caesars charges steeper -139 odds to back the Over on Covington's points, so we are making this wager at DraftKings, where a $10 wager pays out $17.69 compared to $17.19 at Caesars.
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Duquesne point guard Jimmy Clark has totaled four or more assists in three of the previous four games and eight of the last 11. He dominates the ball, ranking seventh among all A-10 players in the percentage of his team's possessions, and is sixth in assist rate at 26.7%. Clark is a big reason the Dukes rank fifth in league play in assists per made field goal, and he should expose a Bonnies defense that allows assists at the second-highest rate of any team in league play (57.5%). This is a four-star play as Duquesne assists on 16 of 27 made field goals in a 75-69 road win in the last regular season matchup between these teams, and Clark was responsible for half of those.
We are getting the best return and potential payout by using our bet365 bonus code: SBRBONUS, as some of our other best sports betting sites are charging as much as -135 in juice.
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Saturday's college basketball game picks
Saint Joseph's is the first No. 9 seed or lower to advance to the A-10 semifinals since 2017, but as was evident in non-conference wins over Villanova and Princeton and an overtime loss at Kentucky, the Hawks are capable of playing with the best teams in the country.
Much of Saint Joseph's chances in the quarterfinal against Richmond hinged on leading scorer Erik Reynolds' status after he suffered an elbow injury late in the prior game. However, Reynolds looked perfectly healthy in a 30-point outburst against Richmond. The Hawks squandered a six-point halftime lead at VCU in the lone regular season meeting between these teams, but given their impressive defensive performance against the Spiders (the 61 points was Richmond's second-lowest scoring output of the season), we are happy to back them as underdogs.
FanDuel is the only shop offering a spread of +2.5 at less than the standard -110 juice, while Caesars and BetMGM charge -115 to back the underdogs.
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Cornell and Yale split two regular-season meetings that went down to the wire (each game was decided by three or fewer points). But the Bulldogs ended the regular season with three wins in their last six games, and all the losses in that span came against the other three teams in the Ivy League Tournament, giving us pause that they can be the league's elite this weekend.
Cornell is looking to avenge a 20-point loss in last year's conference tournament to Yale and will have plenty of motivated players to do so, with the 30th-most combined minutes returning from last year's squad. The Big Red are a tough opponent to prepare for, as they rank among the highest percentiles in catch-and-shoot-offenses (per Synergy) and press at one of the highest rates in the country. Cornell only lost the first meeting by two points despite shooting 16 fewer free throws and exacted its revenge in the rematch by forcing Yale into 13 turnovers and hold ing the Bulldogs to a season-low 62 points (Yale also scored 62 points the game prior against Princeton).
FanDuel and BetMGM have Cornell as 1.5-point underdogs, but if we were deciding between that number compared to the +2 we are getting at a selection of our best sportsbooks, we would rather opt for the Big Red's moneyline odds (the best price is +112 at FanDuel, where a $10 wager would pay out $11.20).
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College basketball best bets made Saturday at 6:04 a.m. ET.
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