College Basketball Best Bets: Expect Ohio State to Buck Recent Skid

Rich Barnes-USA TODAY Sports

College basketball experts Three Man Weave and SI Gambling Producer Max Meyer are back with their three best bets for Thursday's slate, including rolling with a couple SEC teams. We're using the current odds from William Hill (as of 11:18 a.m. EST) for these plays.

Minnesota at Ohio State
3MW Pick: Ohio State -8

I know what you’re probably thinking: “He’s just taking the Big Ten home team by default, what a hack!” And while I may indeed be a hack, I can at least assure you that there’s some actual thought going into this one. Plus, the home dominance has come to a screeching halt: B1G road teams went 3-0 ATS on Tuesday night and 2-0 on Wednesday, so perhaps that trend is dead and gone.

The most obvious angle here is the classic “revenge” factor. The Buckeyes went into Minneapolis on Dec. 15 as a 7.5-point favorite with a perfect 9-0 record and the #1 ranking in the land; they left with their tails between their legs after a thorough butt-kicking that saw them down by double-digits for nearly the entire second half. By itself, that is not reason enough to bet the Buckeyes, but it is a nice added incentive that should motivate Ohio State to keep its foot on the gas pedal throughout the game.

One parallel for this line of thinking would be Utah State and Air Force. The Aggies, assuredly the better team of the two, lost in Colorado Springs by 19 in a relatively embarrassing performance. In the rematch on Tuesday, USU was favored at home by 15—and won by 25.

Aside from revenge, I do think the Buckeyes’ swoon is slightly overstated. Emotional firebrand Kyle Young had an appendectomy and missed two games; he should be much closer to full health in his fourth game back. Additionally, five of Ohio State’s six losses have come away from Columbus; the only home loss was to Wisconsin, who does not obey the laws of home-court basketball this year. This sets up well as a bit of a “get right” game in front of a packed Value City Arena crowd for a team that is not as bad as its recent play has shown.

The Buckeyes’ biggest issue in the first meeting was Minnesota point guard Marcus Carr treating their defense like traffic cones in a driver’s test. Carr weaved in and out of the paint at will en route to a 35-point, seven-assist performance that left Ohio State’s once-vaunted defense staggered. I believe in Ohio State Coach Chris Holtmann to devise a scheme that makes things far more difficult for the Gophers’ triggerman, and it should also help to have another wing-sized body to throw at him (Duane Washington missed the first meeting with injury).

The other major problem was Kaleb Wesson picking up his fourth foul with 14 minutes left in that one. Granted, Ohio State was already down 14 points at the time, but the Buckeyes’ All-American candidate rotting on the bench undermined any possibility of a second-half surge. Ohio State needs Wesson on the floor to battle Minnesota’s own star center, Daniel Oturu.

I made Ohio State a double-digit favorite in this one, which admittedly feels high, but when combined with the added motivation that Ohio State should have after getting clowned in Minneapolis, the slight “buy low” angle for a Buckeyes team that has lost five of its last six, and the Holtmann versus Richard Pitino coaching matchup (a clear edge to the Buckeyes, in my opinion), I will ride once more with a Big Ten home team.

San Francisco at Saint Mary's
3MW Pick: San Francisco +9

Tonight’s Battle of the Bay features two WCC hopefuls, each of whom is looking to climb out of the conference leaderboard logjam with a win this evening. San Francisco and Saint Mary’s are two of the four teams knotted at 3-2, already 2.5 games behind the big bad Gonzaga Bulldogs. USF’s charged back into contention with three straight wins over the past two weeks, while Saint Mary’s finds itself in unfamiliar territory, unable to escape the conference commoners in the middle of the standings.

The prevailing prognosis this summer was that Saint Mary’s would once again rub shoulders with Gonzaga at the top of the WCC totem pole. For over a decade, the Gaels and Zags have exchanged jabs in an Ali/Frazier-esque rivalry—Ali being Gonzaga of course—each jockeying for an outright claim of the WCC title belt. But, the 2019-20 rendition of Saint Mary’s doesn’t seem to pack the same punch and precision as prior versions. The Gaels’ choppy 3-2 start in league play is proof of their vulnerability, exemplified in last week’s loss at home to Santa Clara. That same Santa Clara team was missing its primary rim protector and most valuable interior defender, a void that the Gaels failed to exploit. Yes, Saint Mary’s is also missing its man in the middle, Matthias Tass, who is done for the year after tearing his ACL against Nevada before Christmas break, but losing outright as a double-digit favorite deserves a “failed to meet expectations” on the report card.

Since Tass went down, the Gales are 4-2 overall but just 3-3 ATS, the latter of which more accurately depicts Saint Mary’s middling play at the moment. Reserves Dan Fotu and Jock Perry have admirably stepped in during Tass’s absence, but neither is the feared 1-on-1 isolation scorer in the post that Tass was. This element of the Gaels’ offense was a lethal complement to the 1-2 punch of Jordan Ford and Malik Fitts, which bears as much offensive responsibility as any tandem in the country. Ford is the lead alpha, a volcanic scorer and a magician creator, a weapon few opponents can silence.

However, San Francisco is blessed with one of the most underrated on-ball defenders in the country in Jamaree Bouyea, a deceptively bouncy athlete with Spiderman length at the point guard position. Bouyea’s reputation as a defensive stopper is contained to the WCC, but he can heat up the ball as well as any guard in America when locked in. In the first meeting between these two back on Jan. 2, Bouyea and backcourt partner Khalil Shabazz disturbed Saint Mary’s less athletic guards with extended pressure and deceptive traps, a ploy Todd Golden may pull out of his bag of tricks this evening.

Fitts, on the other hand, is a different beast. He went gangbusters on the Dons at War Memorial earlier this month, routinely exploiting USF’s lack of a worthy wing adversary. USF will live with Fitts getting his—the focus must be on eliminating the highly efficient looks from the rest of the supporting cast, most of which are generated from well-timed back cuts and open catch-and-shoot threes. The Gaels have no shortage of long-range marksmen, but even the best snipers in the world aren’t perfect. Yet so far this season, Saint Mary’s has flirted with perfection, currently shooting a blistering-hot 41.2% from long distance as a team. This conversion rate isn’t a fluke, but that doesn’t mean it will sustain. In fact, parsing out conference games from the non-conference chunk of the season, that 3PT% clip has already fallen to a more reasonable 37%. Juxtapose that with San Francisco’s 38% defensive 3-point field goal percentage (which ranks in the bottom 25 nationally) and you get a prime shooting regression value spot play here with the Dons.

UCLA at Oregon State
Meyer's Pick: Oregon State -7.5

There were three Pac-12 teams that got swept on latest road trip, setting up some nice buy-low opportunities as they return to their homecourt. While Cal doesn’t play until this weekend, Utah and Oregon State each play tonight. I really wanted to back the Utes tonight, but I can’t pull the trigger because I think the matchup against a maddening Washington team is a nightmare for them.

So that leaves Oregon State, which gets to play UCLA with the Bruins coming off a 10-point win over Cal. But it may have been the ugliest game I’ve watched this season, as UCLA won 50-40 in a battle that set the sport back a couple decades. It’s honestly pretty amazing Cal only lost by 10 considering the fact that the Golden Bears had a nearly 11-minute stretch (10:59 to be exact) in the second half without scoring a single point.

UCLA’s offense has been a trainwreck at times under Mick Cronin, and I think the Bruins will massively struggle tonight. Wayne Tinkle likes to switch it up between man and zone defense, confusing opposing offenses with different looks. In particular, Oregon State has had success rolling out a 1-3-1 zone with Tinkle’s son Tres up top and 7-foot fly-swatter Kylor Kelley in the middle. I’ve seen the Bruins struggle against the likes of Chaminade running zone this season, and UCLA needed seven threes from freshman Jake Kyman (who has put up 16 points and two threes in four Pac-12 games since) just to score 66 points against Washington’s 2-3.

The Bruins don’t shoot threes often (310th in three-point attempt rate) and don’t shoot them well (299th in 3P%), and attacking the rim against Oregon State has been a fruitless endeavor for many teams this season. The Beavers are 16th in all of CBB by allowing opponents to shoot 50.1% at the rim, and are eighth in percentage of shots blocked at the rim (18.9%). That is largely attributed to Kelley, whose mere presence is bewildering for opponents looking to get a shot up close to the basket. Kelley also ranks third among all players in block rate.

In the past two weeks, UCLA has faced two teams that rank in the top 35 in rim FG% defense, Stanford and USC. The Bruins shot 42.7% on twos in those games, and lost each by double digits. UCLA’s favorite shot, though, has been two-point jumpers. The Bruins take two-point jumpers on 37.6% of their shots, which is the 16th-highest frequency in all of college basketball. If you take away their rim looks and force them to shoot more jumpers, UCLA will struggle to put up points on the scoreboard.

Oregon State, meanwhile, lives at the rim on offense. The Beavers take 44.2% of their shots at the rim (20th in CBB), with Tinkle using his strong blend of size and quickness to get to the hole effortlessly. Per Dribble Handoff, the Beavers have the eighth-best shot quality in college basketball, and against a lackluster UCLA defense (199th in adjusted defensive efficiency) that has a rare size disadvantage in this one, Oregon State should have the advantage on that end.

The Beavers have been brutal outside of Corvallis this season, registering just two wins (Colorado and KenPom’s No. 294 team Wyoming) in six tries, including defeats to Texas A&M (152nd on KenPom), Utah (121) and Washington State (119). I think you’ll see a nice bounce-back effort in the Beavers’ return to their homecourt, especially with a big advantage in shot selection, while the Bruins continue to spiral downward. 

Overall Record: 33-28-1

3MW Record: 23-16-1

Meyer Record: 10-11

Guest Record: 0-1