College basketball offers an exciting Saturday slate to compete with the NFL Wild Card Weekend doubleheader, and we have you covered with our daily college basketball player props and best bets for Saturday based on the best college basketball odds.
If this week is any indication of what the NCAA Tournament will look like, we are truly in for some “March Madness.”
Just this week alone, four of the top five teams ranked in the AP poll lost, and AP top-25 teams are just 14-10 since Monday. Are we in store for more upsets this weekend?
Here are our college basketball player props and best bets for Saturday (odds via our best March Madness betting sites; pick confidence based on a 1-to-5-star scale).
Saturday's college basketball schedule and odds
(Odds via DraftKings)
- Tennessee (-7.5) vs. Georgia
- Syracuse vs. North Carolina (-12.5)
- St. John's vs. Creighton (-7)
- Oklahoma vs. Kansas (-6.5)
- Kentucky vs. Texas A&M (-2)
- Houston (-5.5) vs. TCU
- LSU vs. Auburn (-14)
- Cincinnati vs. Baylor (-6.5)
Saturday's college basketball best bets
- Ryan Kalkbrenner Over 25.5 PRA vs. St. John's (-110 via DraftKings) ???
- RJ Davis Over 2.5 3-pointers made vs. Syracuse (-140 via bet365) ???
- Kansas -5.5 vs. Oklahoma (-110 via BetMGM) ????
- Colorado -8.5 vs. USC (-110 via Caesars) ????
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Saturday's college basketball player props
Rick Pitino's St. John's team may be ahead of schedule in terms of how it's playing given its numerous players from the transfer portal. The Red Storm are 4-1 in Big East play and earned a rare win in Villanova's on-campus arena two games ago. However, they've allowed 70-plus points in three consecutive league wins, so St. John's is winning these games with offense.
Creighton center Ryan Kalkbrenner has scored 20-plus points and totaled 30 or more points + rebounds + assists in each of the last two games. He'll draw the defensive assignment mostly from Joel Soriano, one of the Red Storm's lone holdovers from rosters of the past, and Kalkbrenner has totaled at least 22 PRA in each of the last four regular-season meetings between these teams.
However, after leading the country in adjusted tempo each of the last two seasons, St. John's is playing at the 74th-fastest pace this year, which should help Kalkbrenner get much more comfortable and less tired playing in more of a half-court setting.
bet365 has the Over on Kalkbrenner to score more than 16.5 points juiced to -120, so if you think he will exceed his 8.4 rebounds and assists average for the season, the Over deserves a long look for this player combo prop at DraftKings.
Following a stretch of eight straight games in which North Carolina guard RJ Davis scored 20-plus points, he hasn't topped 16 points in three consecutive league games. However, even though his scoring is down from his hot streak, he hasn't slowed down in the perimeter shooting department, making 9-of-21 3-pointers in that three-game stretch (42.9%), with three or more 3-pointers in two of the three.
To have to pay a price of only -140 for Davis to make three 3-pointers is great value, considering he's cashed that wager in eight of the previous nine games.
He's made six 3-pointers in the last two games against Syracuse, and even though the Orange are not playing 2-3 zone as much as they did under Jim Boeheim, opponents are still hoisting 38.3% of their shots from beyond the arc against Syracuse, which ranks in the top 150 in the country.
DraftKings and bet365 offer the same -140 odds for this wager.
Saturday's college basketball game picks
Kansas is coming off a shocking loss as a seven-point road favorite against UCF on Wednesday, but Hall of Fame coach Bill Self usually gets his team's attention after losses, as the Jayhawks are 6-2 ATS after losses since the start of last season.
The Jayhawks have a 2-11 ShotQuality ATS record, as the site tends to overestimate their metrics, but we still can't ignore that ShotQuality projects them to win this game by more than 13 points.
Kansas ranks 37th in adjusted ShotQuality while Oklahoma is 60th. Kansas is undervalued in this game after its 65-60 loss to the Knights, a game that ShotQuality graded as a Kansas win.
Per its metrics, the only area that UCF performed better in than its season averages was in pick-and-roll situations, but that is not a huge staple of the Oklahoma offense, as head coach Porter Moses would rather let his two top ball-handlers, Javian McCollum and Milos Uzan, play more in isolation.
The Sooners entered their only true road game against TCU ranked in the 77th percentile in transition attempt rate allowed, and they were subsequently burned for 80 points, the third-most they have allowed this season.
We expect the Jayhawks to exploit that weakness and lock down the Sooners on the strength of a defense that ranks 12th in adjusted defensive efficiency.
BetMGM is the only one of our best sports betting apps with a spread lower than -6, and the -5.5 point spread looks a lot more appealing considering FanDuel, DraftKings, and bet365 are all a full point higher at -6.5.
Colorado enters this game on a three-game losing streak, which includes an embarrassing 97-50 loss at Arizona last Thursday. However, though there are no excuses for a 47-point loss, the Buffaloes were missing two of their top three leading scorers, Tristan da Silva and Cody Williams, who combine to average 30.5 points per game.
Both players are back and haven't looked like they missed a beat from their time off, as da Silva has scored 37 points in the last two games, while Williams scored 16 points in 38 minutes in his return from a seven-game absence against California.
At full strength, Colorado should be too much for a USC team that ranks outside the top 300 in 3-point percentage defense (36.1% allowed, and a whopping 43.1% in Pac-12 play), while Colorado ranks ninth nationally with a 39.6% 3-point percentage.
Colorado's last three losses have all come on the road, but it's 8-0 in Boulder this season and 33-6 SU as a home favorite over the last three seasons.
Meanwhile, USC has failed to cover its two games as a road underdog, and its only true road win was against Alabama State, KenPom's 303rd-ranked team.
We are getting great value on this spread at Caesars, as DraftKings and bet365 are much higher on the Buffaloes at -10.
College basketball best bets made Friday at 11:24 p.m. ET
Here are our best March Madness betting sites:
- Caesars Promo Code: SBRBONUS1000 | Read our Caesars Review
- BetMGM Bonus Code: SBRBONUS | Read our BetMGM Review
- bet365 Bonus Code: SBRBONUS | Read our bet365 Review
- BetRivers Promo Code: SBRBONUS | Read our BetRivers Review
- FanDuel Promo Code | Read our FanDuel Review
- DraftKings Promo Code | Read our DraftKings Review
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* Bonuses not applicable in Ontario.
Related pages
- Best Live Betting Sites | Best Sportsbook Promos (U.S. only)