College basketball offers an exciting Saturday slate to compete with the NFL Divisional Round 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 you looked at the scores among the top 25 teams from this past week, you would likely assume that there were plenty of upsets, as four ranked teams (TCU, Baylor, Utah State, and Ole Miss) all lost to unranked teams.
However, the interesting thing is that all were road underdogs in those games, which makes the trend of unranked teams at home being favored over ranked teams a trend to watch going forward.
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)
- Baylor vs. Texas (-1.5)
- Marquette (-1.5) vs. St. John's
- Creighton (-2.5) vs. Seton Hall
- Alabama vs. Tennessee (-5)
- Iowa State vs. TCU (-3.5)
- BYU vs. Texas Tech (-1)
- UConn (-4) vs. Villanova
- Ole Miss vs. Auburn (-13)
Saturday's college basketball best bets
- Max Abmas Under 16.5 points vs. Baylor (-105 via DraftKings) ???
- Jahmyl Telfort Over 21.5 PRA vs. DePaul (-125 via DraftKings) ???
- Creighton -2.5 vs. Seton Hall (-105 via FanDuel) ????
- Texas A&M -2 vs. LSU (-110 via DraftKings) ????
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Saturday's college basketball player props
It may seem blasphemous to bet the Under on Max Abmas' point total in any game, given that the prolific scorer averaged 21.9 points or better in each of the previous three seasons. However, with him averaging 17.8 points per game in his first season in Austin from Oral Roberts, his scoring average is on pace to decrease for the third consecutive year, which makes sense now that he is with Texas and no longer needs to be the focal point of the offense.
Abmas did not get many opportunities to face ranked teams while at Oral Roberts, but in his last six games against top-27 KenPom teams dating back to the start of last season, he has ended with the following point totals: 15, 25, 5, 12, 3, 14.
Thus, he has gone Over this total only once in that span and now faces a Baylor team (ranked 15th in KenPom) that has held its four Big 12 opponents to an average of 61.3 points per game in regulation.
Abmas has scored 15 points in two of the previous three games, and while he is shooting 45.1% from 3-point range in that span, the Bears have held opponents to just 29.1% shooting (29th-best in the country) from beyond the arc. We also expect Bears head coach Scott Drew to put one of his lengthier wing players on Abmas to negate his jump shooting and make him put the ball on the floor more often.
Butler guard Jahmyl Telfort averages 13.7 points, 4.6 rebounds, and 3.0 assists per game this season, which adds to 21.3 among all three categories. However, in this game, he is facing a DePaul defense that has allowed 84-plus points in five of six Big East games and is coming off a 100-62 shellacking from Providence on its home floor, during which the Friars shot a blistering 58.3% from the floor.
Telfort has scored in double figures in four of seven league games, and he should make up the majority of this player combo total in scoring alone, as DePaul ranks 305th or worse in both 2-point and 3-point defense. Telfort has played at least 34 minutes in seven consecutive games, which should also give him ample time to secure five-plus rebounds as he has done in four games in that span.
We know DePaul will oblige with missed shots (the Blue Demons rank 259th in adjusted offensive efficiency), and its defense also ranks 265th in assists per field goal made (54.0%).
Saturday's college basketball game picks
This is a wager we fully expect to be on the contrarian side, given these teams' results from earlier this week.
Seton Hall is tied atop the Big East standings with UConn at 6-1, after an 80-65 thrashing of St. John's, a game in which it led by 28 in the second half. Meanwhile, Creighton tied a season-low with 48 points in a 14-point road loss to UConn, as the Bluejays were outrebounded 48-32.
However, one must factor in that St. John's was missing Hall of Fame head coach Rick Pitino on the sidelines due to COVID, and Creighton's lackluster offensive performances against UConn are nothing new, as the BlueJays have averaged just 59.6 points per game in the last five meetings against the Huskies.
Creighton's 10th-ranked turnover rate in Big East play is offset by the fact that Seton Hall is the one team that turns the ball over more than the Bluejays (the Pirates have a league-worst 22.3% turnover rate in league play).
Analytics love Creighton in this matchup, as KenPom projects a 70-68 victory, while ShotQuality has the Bluejays winning by eight. The Pirates can be beaten from the 3-point line, as they allow the 34th-highest percentage of opponents' points, while Creighton gets 39% of its points from perimeter shots (ranks 18th). Thus, if the Bluejays' threes are falling, they should narrow the gap between them and the Pirates in the league standings with a big road win.
DraftKings and BetRivers also offer a point spread of -2.5 (the rest of our best sports betting apps are at -3), but they are juiced to -110 and -112, respectively, to lay the points with the favorites.
This is one of the rare cases in which two conference opponents are already meeting for the second time this season despite it only being mid-January.
LSU won at College Station 68-53 on Jan. 6 in the conference opener for both teams, as the Tigers outrebounded the Aggies 46-40 and outscored them 36-20 in the paint. However, despite the lopsided margin, ShotQuality graded the game as only a one-possession loss, as the Aggies missed many clean looks while shooting 5-of-28 from beyond the arc.
Texas A&M ranks dead-last in the SEC in both 2-point and 3-point shooting percentage, but it was encouraging that it found a way to beat Kentucky at home last weekend despite the offensive struggles.
Entering LSU's last game against Ole Miss, the Tigers were owed defensive 3-point shooting regression (7% worth of regression, per ShotQuality data) and then were torched for 80 points by the Rebels, in large part because Ole Miss shot 29 free throws. A&M's Wade Taylor has scored 72 points in the last two games, and we expect him to put the Aggies on his back and to continue Texas A&M's ATS success off a loss (the Aggies are 4-2 ATS following a loss this season).
DraftKings is the only one of our best sports betting sites with a line of Aggies -2, as all other best sportsbooks are at -2.5.
College basketball best bets made Friday at 8:55 p.m. ET
Here are our best March Madness betting sites:
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- DraftKings Promo Code | Read our DraftKings Review
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Related pages
- Best Live Betting Sites | Best Sportsbook Promos (U.S. only)