Just five conference championships remain between now and Selection Sunday, and we offer our top college basketball player props and best bets for Sunday based on the best college basketball odds.
If conference tournament action is any indication, we are in for a wild March Madness, as 21 No. 1 seeds failed to win their respective postseason championships. The fallout from conference tournaments could cause a major shakeup in both the Final Four odds and March Madness odds.
There are no No. 1 seeds playing in any of the five championship games today, and Brown (Ivy League), Duquesne (Atlantic 10), and Temple (American) look to shock the college basketball world as some of the unlikeliest tournament winners on Selection Sunday.
Here are our college basketball player props and best bets for Sunday (college basketball picks based on odds via our best March Madness betting sites; pick confidence based on a 1-to-5-star scale).
Don't miss our Wisconsin vs. Illinois prediction for more on Sunday's action.
Sunday's college basketball best bets
- Danny Wolf Over 9.5 rebounds vs. Brown (-120 via bet365) ???
- Max Shulga Over 22.5 points+rebounds+assists vs. Duquesne (-105 via DraftKings) ????
- Yale -7.5 vs. Brown (-105 via Caesars) ????
- Wisconsin ML vs. Illinois (+135 via BetMGM) ???
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Sunday's college basketball schedule and odds
(Odds via Caesars)
- Brown vs. Yale | Spread: Yale -7.5 | Total: 135
- Florida vs. Auburn | Spread: Auburn -5 .5 | Total: 155.5
- Duquesne vs. VCU | Spread: VCU -2 | Total: 127
- Temple vs. UAB | Spread: UAB -6.5 | Total: 137.5
- Wisconsin vs. Illinois | Spread: Illinois -3.5 | Total: 148.5
Sunday's college basketball player props
Yale center Danny Wolf's role has expanded significantly since last season, going from 11.6% of the team's minutes played to 75.1%. Wolf is a rebounding machine, with a top 10 defensive rebounding rate nationally (28.8%), and he even hits the offensive glass at the sixth-highest rate (7.5%) of any Ivy League player.
He only grabbed seven rebounds in the overtime loss to Brown two games ago, but had 10 – including three offensive – in the first meeting. His seven-rebound game against Brown was the only one in the last four games where he did not finish with double-digit rebounds.
DraftKings and bet365 save us some money compare d to making this wager at our other best sports betting sites. The -120 odds would pay out $18.33 on a $10 bet, while Caesars' -129 odds lowers our payout to $17.75.
Utah State transfer Max Shulga has averaged a team-high 14.9 points, 4.8 rebounds, and 3.7 assists this year for VCU – totaling 23.4 in all three categories. Though he faces a Duquesne defense that is best in A-10 play in turnovers forced and 3-point percentage allowed, we still expect Shulga to fill up the stat sheet.
He's coming off a 25-point performance – tied for his second-best this season – against Saint Joseph's, and Shulga did not play in the team's only regular season meeting against Duquesne. So, it will be hard for the Dukes to prepare for him.
Shulga has averaged just shy of five assists per game over the last four games while pulling in five-plus rebounds in six of his last nine. We expect his big game exp erience, having played in the NCAA Tournament last year, to pay off with him having another huge game in this conference tournament final. The -105 odds imply a 51.22% probability of Shulga hitting the Over, according to our odds calculator.
Sunday's college basketball game picks
Many forgot that Yale was considered the preseason favorite to win the Ivy League this year, especially after Princeton followed up its Sweet 16 run last year by winning the regular season title. The Bulldogs are out for payback after Brown beat them 84-81 in overtime in the regular season finale. We expect Yale to dominate and play like the team that won by 10 on the road at Brown earlier this season.
This is a four-star play, as Yale has the Ivy's best defense in terms of adjusted defensive efficiency and effective field goal percentage allowed. Plus, a team that returned 66.9% of its minutes from last season (21st in the country) will have the experience edge from playing in the final all six years the Ivy League Tournament has been in existence.
All of our top sports betting sites are in unison with the 7.5-point spread, but Caesars and bet365 are the only two of our best sports betting sites that charge longer than -112 odds to back the favorites.
Wisconsin struggled mightily down the stretch of the regular season, losing eight of its last 11 games. However, over the last three days the Badgers have found the same level of success that got them off to a torrid 8-1 start in Big Ten play. Wisconsin has now covered the spread in 62.5% of its games on no rest in the Greg Gard era, since 2016 (10-6-1 ATS).
In this game, we are foregoing the small point spread and backing the Badgers on the moneyline, as there are major concerns with Illinois' defense heading into this matchup. The Fighting Illini allowed 51 first -half points to Nebraska yesterday, which is tied for the most points the Cornhuskers have scored in any half this season. Nebraska got anything it wanted in the first 20 minutes, shooting 57.6% and connecting on 13-for-17 shot attempts inside the arc.
Backing Wisconsin to win outright takes a payout from $19.09 on a $10 wager on the three-point spread to $23.50 without needing the points. FanDuel offers +132 moneyline odds to back the underdogs, the only other sportsbook that exceeds odds of +130, besides BetMGM.
College basketball best bets made Sunday at 6:20 a.m. ET.
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