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College Basketball Betting Odds, Picks & Predictions: Tuesday (2/28)

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Over the weekend, several long-range buzzer-beaters, huge comebacks, and upsets of highly-ranked teams had us feeling that “March Madness” was already here. ESPN Stats & Info took to Twitter to highlight one of the more surprising results of the weekend.

Here are our best bets for Tuesday’s college basketball action.

  • YTD (as of 1/21): 40-28

And here are our other top picks for Tuesday:

View 5-star bets and historical prop performance by players with our Prop Bet Analyzer >>

Best College Basketball Bets for Tuesday

(Odds courtesy of DraftKings)

Saint Louis vs. VCU O/U

VCU ranks second in the A-10 in scoring defense, allowing just 62.7 points per game. Its defense has been even better of late, as the Rams have allowed just 59.8 points per game over their last 13 games. However, Saint Louis’s offense was most successful against them in that span, scoring 65 points and making 40% (8-of-20) of its shots from beyond the arc. In addition, VCU has been playing with much more pace lately, averaging 80.3 points over its last three games while committing fewer than ten turnovers in two of them. Thus, the Rams should have plenty of clean possessions again when facing a Billikens defense that ranks 13th in A-10 play in turnover percentage forced (16.1%).

The Over has cashed in five of Saint Louis’s six games where it had a rest disadvantage, as it will in this game, having played on Saturday while VCU’s last game was Friday. Thus, this is a contrarian play against the Under cashing 11 of the 17 times VCU has been favored at home.

Bet: Saint Louis-VCU Over 142.5 (-110 at DraftKings)

Arkansas vs. Tennessee Spread

Arkansas will not have Trevon Brazile back as he suffered a torn ACL in the season’s ninth game. But the Razorbacks are considerably healthier than they once were, as standout freshman guard Nick Smith has returned from a knee injury that kept him out 19 games this season. Smith has played in just ten games this year, but when he has played at least 20 minutes, the Razorbacks are 6-1, with their only loss coming in their last game by three points at Alabama. Arkansas had an 11-point lead in the first half of that game and did a masterful job stifling the Crimson Tide from 3-point range, allowing 3-for-22 (13.6%).

Running teams off the 3-point line has always been its strength, as the Razorbacks allowed the fewest percentage of 3-point attempts per field goal attempt (28.8%) in league play. Considering the Volunteers rank 229th in the country in the percentage of their points coming from inside the arc (49.6%), that could spell doom for their chances of offensive success.

Arkansas has played well on short rest, covering 11 of 19 games when it has had 2-3 days off. Meanwhile, Tennessee is just 2-6 ATS in its last eight, so we are backing the underdogs, who have more momentum and reason for optimism entering this matchup.

Bet: Arkansas +6.5 (-110 at DraftKings)

Michigan State vs. Nebraska ML

If there is any coach in the country we trust more to get his team to brush off a bad loss, it is Spartans head coach Tom Izzo. Michigan State was the victim of one of the craziest comebacks of the season, as Iowa outscored it 23-10 over the final 1:30 of regulation to force overtime. However, we expect Izzo to focus on the positives and get his team ready to play a crucial game against Nebraska, with the result impacting its Big Ten tournament seeding heavily.

We can nitpick the Spartans’ end-game woes all we want but prefer to highlight that they were a part of the first Big Ten game in the last 25 seasons in which both teams scored 100 points in regulation, per ESPN Stats & Info. Izzo’s club held Nebraska to 0.88 points per possession and 2-of-16 from 3-point range in an 18-point win at the Breslin Center in early January, and we expect the Spartans to get back to the style of defense tonight.

Michigan State is 7-3 ATS after a loss, and we expect that trend to correlate to a big win against a Nebraska team that has covered just six of 18 games with 2-3 days off.

Bet: Michigan State ML (-165 at DraftKings)

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Mike Spector is a featured writer at BettingPros. For more from Mike, check out his archive and follow him @MikeSpector01.

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