Caleb Wilfinger
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Happy Thanksgiving! Feast Week has been eventful across the college basketball landscape, with upsets abound and top-flight matchups galore. It’s safe to say this will be another excellent season on the hardwood and we should expect no different after a terrific 2022-23 campaign.
Last season, I touted UConn at +2500 to win the National Championship and I hope you were able to cash with me! We’ll have plenty of time to add to our National Title portfolio before next year’s NCAA Tournament, but for now, let’s get into my best bets column for what should be a fantastic Thanksgiving Day slate.
There are plenty of good value bets of which to take advantage. Let’s take a look at my best bets for these games on Thanksgiving, but make sure you also check out our college basketball picks for the biggest games of the day.
Virginia Tech Hokies -1.5 over Boise State Broncos (-110)
Odds available at FanDuel Sportsbook at time of publishing
I backed Virginia Tech earlier this season against South Carolina thinking that the backcourt of Hunter Cattoor and Sean Pedulla would dominate the game and lead the Hokies to victory. And while that didn’t exactly happen, we got pretty unlucky in the fact that Virginia Tech started off extremely slow from the field and shot just 31% from beyond the 3-point arc. That was only a 2-point loss against Gamecocks team that is ranked 10 spots higher in KenPom than this Boise State side.
The Broncos defense has some holes, ranking outside the top 250 in effective FG%, and we saw those struggles in a recent game against Clemson, where they were shredded by the Tigers’ backcourt. I expect a similar outcome here as the Hokies should win and cover this short number in the ESPN Wide World of Sports complex.
Arizona Wildcats -4.5 over Michigan State Spartans (-110)
Odds available at FanDuel Sportsbook at time of publishing
We’ve played only a few weeks of the college hoops season, but it appears I might have been a wrong about Michigan State. The Spartans likely entered the season as a bit overvalued by the betting market and Tom Izzo’s group struggled mightily in losses against James Madison and Duke.
That common opponent of Duke looms large heading into this matchup with the Arizona Wildcats — who knocked off the Blue Devils in Cameron Indoor — won that game with their excellent frontcourt and I expect Oumar Ballo to feast in the paint against a Spartans team that was torched by Duke in that Champions Classic defeat. Arizona scores nearly 50 points per game in the paint this season against a Michigan State defense that is outside the top 100 in defending the paint. That alone has me on the Wildcats, but it doesn’t hurt that Arizona is 5-0 ATS as well.
