Top College Basketball Betting Odds, Picks & Predictions: Wednesday, December 7th (2022)

At DraftKings, Purdue’s Zach Edey has stormed atop the odds leaderboard for the Wooden Award with +350 odds. Oscar Tshiebwe of Kentucky is the only other player with odds shorter than +1400. Edey has averaged 23.3 points and 12.8 rebounds per game thus far and gets another chance to add to his POY resume with a home game against Hofstra tonight.

Here are our best bets for Wednesday’s college basketball action. (Odds courtesy of DraftKings)

Towson vs. Clemson Spread

Clemson’s two losses this season are by a combined five points to South Carolina and Iowa, and it is a perfect 6-0 at Littlejohn Coliseum. However, Towson has won all four road games this year and has the necessary experience to give a Power Five team all it can handle in a sneaky-good non-conference matchup.

Towson starts five seniors, four of which averaged 9.8 points or better from last year’s 25-win team. Those four (Cameron Holden, Nicolas Timberlake, Charles Thompson, and Jason Gibson) have combined for 52.6 points per game this season. Furthermore, the backcourt duo of Holden and Timberlake each averaged better than 15 points per game thus far, despite neither shooting better than 33.3% from 3-point range. However, the two have stepped up when the team needed them most in their biggest games, as they went a combined 6-for-10 against UMass and 6-for-13 against Ivy League favorite Penn.

DraftKings is currently a half-point or full-point lower on Towson than what you can find at other sportsbooks, so bettors may want to wait to see if a +7 or +7.5 will pop up for better value.

Bet: Towson +6.5 (-105 at DraftKings) 

UConn vs. Florida ML

After Creighton’s shocking home last to Nebraska earlier this week, is it fair to dub UConn as the Big East favorite? The Huskies have won their first nine games by more than 24 points per game and are one of five teams in the country with two Quad 1 wins without a loss.

This game will come down to who wins the big-man battle between Adama Sanogo and Colin Castleton. Florida relies heavily on Castleton; his 16.6 ppg is 57.4% of the team’s frontcourt scoring. However, against Xavier’s physical frontcourt of Zach Freemantle and Jack Nunge, Castleton scored just 11 points on 5-of-14 shooting. There is arguably no frontline in the country more physical than UConn’s, and Big East Player of the Year frontrunner Sanogo could quickly send the Gators’ best player to the bench early with foul trouble. The Gators do not have many other options to guard Sanogo, while UConn can throw several different bodies at Castleton to protect its big man.

Bet: UConn ML (-190 at DraftKings)

New Mexico State vs. Santa Clara Spread

New Mexico State is bound to pull some upsets this year with their success in shooting the basketball. The Aggies rank second in the country with a 43.8% 3-point shooting percentage. Considering they get 36.9% of their points from 3-point shots (57th-most in the country), that bodes well for their chances of success going forward. Santa Clara ranks outside the top 130 in defending the arc and will have its hands full with the Aggies, who have six of their top seven leading scores all shooting better than 40% from deep. Conversely, Santa Clara is overly reliant on Brandin Podziemski’s scoring (20.6 ppg), and in the Broncos’ two losses this year, Podziemski has averaged just eight points per game on a combined 5-of-19 shooting.

New Mexico State is 7-2 ATS in its last nine games, while Santa Clara is just 1-4 ATS in its last five following a SU win. We like for the Aggies to cover this big number on the road.

Bet: New Mexico State +7.5 (-110 at DraftKings)  

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