College Basketball Betting Picks For Friday Include Pair Of Future NCAA Tournament Teams As Road Underdogs
Videos by OutKick
We had a nice bounce-back with our college basketball betting picks for Thursday night, hitting four out of six. Going to keep it short for Friday, as we have a light slate.
Drexel (-13.5) over North Carolina A&T ❌
Tarleton (+4.5) over Cal Baptist❌
Louisiana Tech (-6) over Middle Tennessee✅
San Francisco (-10) over San Diego✅
UC Irvine (+1.5) over Hawaii✅
Not a ton to recap here. Drexel and Tarleton were clear misses, while the other four picks hit pretty comfortably.
2024 record: 17-17-3 (official picks), 7-5 (leans), 24-22-3 (overall)
This is more of a fade of Canisius than it is an endorsement of Siena. Siena is not a good basketball team and are, in fact, one of the five worst in the country. However, Canisius doesn’t blow anyone out.
The Griffins have played seven opponents ranked outside the Top 200 and only defeated one of them by more than 10 points. They’ve also lost four of those games. Siena isn’t great, but they did defeat Rider, a team that just defeated Canisius.
Canisius relies almost exclusively on hitting three-point shots and that can go cold quickly. It has for them lately, too, as they’ve lost four straight. I’m not going to make a ton of pro-Siena arguments, because there aren’t many to make.
Although, they did recently add Sean Durugordon back into their lineup and he’s scored at least 20 points in all four of his games. Plus, Michael Eley is finally healthy, so Siena currently has its best possible roster on the floor.
And, here’s a very interesting trend: these teams have played each another 10 times since 2019 and not one of those games featured either of these teams winning by more than 10 points. Average margin of victory in these matchups: 4.8 points.
Give me the ten points for Siena.
Minnesota rates as a better team this season than Indiana, which is getting too much value out of both name recognition and homecourt advantage. Indiana has nearly zero depth, with just six players averaging over four points per game.
Neither team is great from the free throw line, but Minnesota is slightly better. They also shoot threes at a better rate, too. And, the Gophers rank 5th in the entire country in assists per game and 16th in assist-to-turnover ratio.
Plus, Minnesota already has a road win over Michigan, another team rated higher than Indiana. I’ll happily take the points, but also sprinkle a little on Minnesota to win this game outright.
I can’t figure out why Duquesne is favored in this matchup. The biggest reason, I believe, is that Dayton guard Kobe Elvis is questionable after suffering a knee injury in the team’s win over Massachusetts last weekend.
The toughest part about college basketball is that injury news is very difficult to find. It’s not like professional sports where teams are required to provide updates. Thus, you have to read between the lines a bit.
As a few people noted on social media, Elvis was right in the middle of a celebration during practice two days ago as Dayton head coach Anthony Grant awarded a scholarship to walk-on Brady Uhl. Plus, Elvis was in a practice jersey, so he probably participated to some degree.
I think Elvis plays in this game and probably shifts the line closer to Dayton. The Flyers are a fringe Top 30 team in the country, and Duquesne is outside the Top 100. Dayton’s net rating is nearly 10 points higher.
They’re much better with Elvis on the floor and I believe we get a good number with his status in question.
Nebraska (+4.5) over Iowa
Nebraska is one of the big surprises in college basketball and they’re clearly better than Iowa. However, this a tough Big Ten road test, so I’ll be cautious and keep this as a lean rather than a best bet.
Purdue Fort Wayne (-3) over Robert Morris
I’m a bit gun shy after Fort Wayne burned me earlier this week, but they’re so clearly better than Robert Morris that I have them on my radar. It’s a lean for now.
