College Basketball Best Bets: Dolla Dolla Billikens Y'all

Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

College basketball experts Three Man Weave are back with their two best bets for Thursday's slate, and they're rolling with a couple of underdogs in conference play. For these bets, we're using the current odds from William Hill (as of 10:15 a.m. EST). 

Note: SI Gambling Producer Max Meyer's best bet will be coming later in the day, and it will be from the Pac-12. 

Georgia Southern at Coastal Carolina

3MW's Pick: Georgia Southern +1

To Myrtle Beach we go for a Sun Belt showdown tonight between Georgia Southern and Coastal Carolina, two teams with legitimate conference title aspirations. In a crowded 12-team field, the Sun Belt was one of the early adopters of the conference schedule frontloading, as this evening’s tilt marks the third league game for both the Chanticleers and the Eagles. Georgia Southern opened its conference slate at home before the break, sneaking past both Texas State and UT Arlington by a field goal, before nearly stunning Georgia in a curiously misplaced non-conference game right before Christmas. The Eagles had Georgia on the ropes, leading by as many as seven points with 10 minutes remaining in the second half, but Tom Crean’s immaculate talent eventually asserted itself down the stretch.

While GSU let a potentially season-defining win slip through its fingertips, the fact that the Eagles stood toe-to-toe with a team chock full of blue-chip recruits validated the importance of Calvin Wishart and Isaiah Crawley, two critical soldiers who were MIA for much of December. Both Crawley and Wishart were sidelined with injuries for four consecutive games (two of which overlapped), but Georgia marked the second consecutive game both were back in the lineup together. Crawley and Wishart each bring an invaluable set of tools to the table—Wishart is the point guard heir apparent to the esteemed Tookie Brown (a GSU cornerstone for four seasons who departed this summer), while Crawley is the wiry, jack-of-all-trades Swiss Army knife weapon on the wing. Collectively, their value from a handicapping perspective can be summed up succinctly. When both Wishnart and Crawley have played this season, the Eagles are 4-2-1 against the spread. Now, as they enter their third game back of the reintegration phase, there’s reason to believe Georgia Southern is relatively undervalued in the betting markets.

As we’re slowly learning just how critical Wishart and Crawley are to head coach Mark Byington’s formulaic success recipe at GSU, Coastal Carolina may soon have a similar epiphany with Ebrima Dibba, once a key cog in the Chanticleers’ rotation before a torn ACL abruptly ended his 2019-20 campaign in late November. The Myrtle Beach boys have been able to tread water without Dibba’s presence over the last seven games—Coastal is 3-4 ATS without him—but there’s likely an expiration date on the Chanticleers’ white-hot shooting streak. Per KenPom, Coastal is currently boasting the nation’s sixth-highest team 3-point field goal percentage at 40.5%, a clip that isn’t excessively inflated but one that’s likely to trend back down toward the higher 30s range as the season progresses.

To top it off, there’s some relevant historical matchup momentum on GSU’s side this evening. Mark Byington and Cliff Ellis are no strangers to one another, two inter-conference competitors who are both long-tenured head coaches at their respective helms. Ellis has the leg up on Byington in experience, but it's Byington who’s gotten the better of the elder Ellis over the last few seasons. Since 2017, Georgia Southern and Coastal Carolina have met four times, three of which the Eagles emerged victorious (both outright and against the spread). Interestingly enough, this will be the third consecutive year Georgia Southern has to travel to Coastal for the two schools’ only conference meeting. The Eagles are actually 2-0 ATS in those last two bouts, covering by an average margin of eight points.

It can be a slippery slope citing circumstantial ATS trends as a case to bet one particular side or the other, but Byington’s army of rim attacking guards and wings has posed a real problem to the Chanticleers the last two seasons. Along with the aforementioned Crawley, three other star actors in the Eagles’ primary rotation, Ike Smith, Simeon Carter and David-Lee Jones, all played against Coastal last year and should have a feel for Cliff Ellis’ shell-like defensive schemes, particularly his patented junk zone.

Saint Louis at Duquesne

3MW Pick: Saint Louis +3.5

A-10 play kicks off tonight with two squads sporting gaudy records. The Billikens and Dukes each have just two losses on the year and a combined 21 wins, but not all records are created equally. SLU has wins over Belmont and Kansas State with losses against Seton Hall and Auburn. Duquesne’s best win is over Indiana State on a neutral floor and its two losses have come against UAB and Marshall. Per KenPom, the Dukes have the 322nd-best non-conference strength of schedule and per the NET, seven of their 10 wins have come against Q4 competition. SLU is the more battle-tested team heading into this matchup.

Home-court advantage is the main macro factor to consider in this game. Duquesne’s arena is being renovated this year, so the Dukes will be forced to play at school gyms within the area. Tonight’s contest will be at Robert Morris, a school about 17 miles away from the Duquesne campus. The Dukes have yet to play a game on this floor this season, meaning any assigned home-court advantage should be minimal. Given the actual spread and KenPom’s assumption of home-court advantage, there is definitely some inflation being factored into this line.

From a matchup perspective, SLU’s edge tonight comes in the form of elite physicality, a brand Travis Ford has instilled in his players since arriving on campus in 2016. SLU is able to compete with any team in the country thanks to its physical play, defense and relentless crashing of the offensive glass. Duquesne is many things but “physical” is not one of them. Just take last year’s two meetings between the Bills and Dukes—SLU grabbed 23 offensive rebounds at Duquesne on January 23rd (54.8% OR%) and 24 offensive rebounds in Saint Louis on March 6th (47.1% OR%). That’s an absolute obliteration on the glass. Keith Dambrot’s squad has been better on the boards this season with the addition of Baylee Steele and the benefit of playing against lesser competition, but tonight’s glass battle will heavily favor the Billikens.

Steele stands 6’11” but the Dukes are an undersized frontcourt aside from the Utah Valley transfer. Michael Hughes, a 6’8” forward, starts at the 5, and he's a very talented big man who blocks shots and grabs rebounds on both ends of the floor at a high rate. But Hughes is foul prone and SLU’s primary offensive attack tonight should go through Hasahn French on the block. French, like Hughes, is not a tall player, but he more than makes up for height with physicality and strength. Hughes is just an average post defender so French will either score at will on the block or get Hughes in foul trouble quickly—neither scenario favors Duquesne.

On the other end of the floor, Duquesne has a balanced attack on offense, able to score in a multitude of ways. However, the Dukes’ preferred methods—pick-n-roll, post-up and transition—have all been well-defended by the athletic Billikens this season. Scoring within the teeth of SLU’s defense will prove to be difficult, meaning the Dukes, a 30.5% 3P shooting team, will need to make outside shots to win.

The final factor to consider in this matchup is the injury story. SLU lost freshman Gibson Jimerson for the season four games ago. Jimerson was SLU’s best outside shooter, a critical piece to a team in desperate need of shooting. Despite his presumed impact, the Billikens are 3-0 in his absence, with one of those wins coming against Kansas State. Terrence Hargrove’s return from injury just as Jimerson went down has helped keep the boat afloat—he’s averaged 13 PPG in the last three and should be a key player off the pine for the Billikens the rest of the year. Sophomore Fred Thatch should also be back tonight after missing the last six games due to complications from myalgia. Thatch isn’t a big-time scorer but he’s an important “glue guy” and leader on the floor, someone who does a little bit of everything when on the court. With Hargrove’s emergence, Thatch’s hopeful appearance and SLU’s ever-improving young core, the Billikens should be able to keep this game close tonight and pull off a victory on Robert Morris’s floor.

Oregon State at Utah

Meyer's Pick: Utah -2 (as of 11:18 a.m. EST on William Hill)

Pac-12 play is here! And since Larry Krystkowiak, a.k.a Other Coach K, took over at Utah in 2011, no one has been more dominant against the spread in conference competition. The Utes have covered against Pac-12 foes 61.2% of the time since 2011, and the two next closest are Oregon at 58.3% and UCLA at 52.5%. Over the past three seasons, Dana Altman’s Ducks and Krystkowiak’s Utes have still been covering machines in conference play, with Oregon at 61.9% (average cover margin of +1.7) and Utah at 61.5% (average cover margin +2.1).

The point is, despite massive roster turnover in recent seasons, the Utes always tend to overachieve under Other Coach K. This season, KenPom has Utah ranked 351st in experience, and many (myself included) thought this would finally be the year the Utes crash. Instead, they’ve shown promise in non-conference play, beating Minnesota and BYU at home while toppling Kentucky in Las Vegas. But like any young team, they’ve been prone to big slip ups as well, as they were blown out by Coastal Carolina on the road, lost a close one to Tulane in South Carolina and were destroyed by San Diego State last game at Staples Center.

I’m not overly concerned by the SDSU drubbing, though, as it came just three days after the shocking Kentucky victory, so naturally it was a bit of a letdown spot for the youthful Utes. That game was Dec. 21, so now Utah has had nearly two weeks to stew over that game and get healthier, particularly freshman revelation Rylan Jones. Jones missed the Weber State game on Dec. 14 due to a rib injury, was a game-time decision vs. Kentucky and had his worst game of the season in terms of offensive rating vs. San Diego State.

“We’ve come back recharged and refocused,” Krystkowiak said. “We’ve had a team that’s been pretty beat up, so it’s been productive for us in terms of getting guys healthier. I would much prefer what we’ve gone through than to have to keep playing games. We’re at full strength and seem to be pretty good.”

Meanwhile, Oregon State is 10-2, but if you dig deeper, it’s come against a non-conference schedule ranked 335th in difficulty on KenPom. The Beavers have beaten just two teams inside the top-200 on KenPom and just one ranked better than 146th. That was a six-point home win over Iowa State, the same team that just lost at home to sub-300 Florida A&M.

Oregon State also has star power, but not much depth. Tres Tinkle, Ethan Thompson and Kylor Kelley combine for 61.1% of the team’s scoring, and if one has an off game or is dealing with foul trouble, that is a major problem for the Beavers. In their last road game, it was Thompson who was held to just four points, and Oregon State lost to an abomination of a Texas A&M team. Utah ranks 31st in the country in free-throw rate, as the Utes are really strong at drawing whistles—especially sophomore slasher Timmy Allen, who ranks 12th in CBB with 7.1 fouls drawn per 40 minutes. Allen has taken the leap in his second season, as he leads the conference in points per game at 21.0.

I am a little nervous about a Utah team that is really strong scoring around the rim (69.3% per hoop-math, 16th in CBB) going up against the shot-blocking maestro Kelley, who is largely responsible for Oregon State’s fourth-best rim defense at 46.6% and sixth-best mark at shots blocked at the rim (20.5%). But the Utes do have great size (22nd in average height) to counter Kelley, headlined by a seven-footer of their own in freshman Branden Carlson. And if Kelley tires quickly from the altitude or gets in foul trouble by the whistle-magnet Utes, Oregon State’s defense is in massive trouble.

Utah is certainly younger, but the Utes have more depth, are more battle-tested and have one of the few important home-court advantages left in CBB in the altitude, which could be a big problem for a Beavers team low on impact players. In Other Coach K we trust.

Overall Record: 19-19-1

3MW Record: 16-11-1

Meyer Record: 3-7

Guest Record: 0-1