College Basketball Picks

NC State's pick & pop offense is one of the best in the country, ranking in the 97th percentile, and Pittsburgh's pick & pop defense allows over one point per possession against such sets. That's the most lopsided mismatch in the game.

The Hawkeyes won’t take the Maryland Terrapins lightly. Not only did they watch Maryland win Tuesday but Iowa lost its most recent matchup, with UMD shooting 53% in that victory. The Hawkeyes are a much tougher challenge, running a methodical half-court pace and playing disruptive defense that makes it tough to go on runs. Some game models have this as a 13-point Iowa win. I believe this spread is giving UMD too much credit for Tuesday’s win and discounting the Hawkeyes for a tough finish to the regular season. Iowa’s ability to flip defense into offense will take advantage of a tired Terps team, especially in the second half.

It has been a long conference slate for the LSU Tigers. They reached SEC play with a proud 12-1 record, only to then go 3-15 in conference play, including losing eight of their last nine. There could be some encouragement in the Tigers going 10-8 against the spread in conference play, compared ot 7-6 ATS in nonconference action, but that was undercut by the 0-3 ATS march to end the season.

Iowa State is at No. 7 in the KenPom ratings and is significantly better on both ends of the floor than Arizona State. The Cyclones beat ASU 86-65 in their regular season finale and have been winning by margin all season. They won 10 conference games by double-digits and had blowout non-conference victories against Purdue, Syracuse, Creighton, and Mississippi State. And the T-Mobile Center should feel like home since their fans have taken over this venue in recent years. With the Sun Devils exhausted after holding off Baylor yesterday, ISU will run them off the floor. 

Hannes Steinbach kept the Washington Huskies competitive through a rash of injuries this season. Despite logging major minutes, he didn’t slow down and enters the Big Ten tournament playing as good as any player in the conference. Steinbach is a handful around the hoop, averaging more than 13 points in the paint while crashing the glass for 5.2 second-chance tallies. The USC Trojans aren’t putting up a fight. The program is in shambles and won’t battle on defense, allowing 38.4 PITP and 12.8 SCP over the last five games. Steinbach had 22 and 24 points versus the Trojans this year.

With Mikel Brown out, J'Vonne Hadley inherits a bigger slice of Louisville's elite offense. He’s already the most efficient transition scorer and is the primary perimeter cutter at the rim. SMU has been an awful defense much of the year, and these are two places they really struggle: Bottom 25% defensively in transition and bottom 10% on perimeter cuts. 

Auburn's best path to the NCAA Tournament is its offense, which ranks No. 12 in the country in efficiency.

This inflated total is an overreaction to the sheer number of points dropped in two prior matchups, but only 146 points were scored in regulation on February 4. 

Both squads played at a slower tempo than usual over the last month of the season, and the First Round of this tournament was low-scoring a year ago — all three games cashed the Under while averaging just 134.7 combined points.

McNeese’s top-ranked conference defense and full-court pressure should force the Lumberjacks into the same errors they’ve made all season, and those buckets in transition will allow the Cowboys to cut down their own nets. 

Marquette is a developmental program that doesn’t rely on the portal, so there was a natural adjustment period following the loss of program stalwarts Kam Jones, David Joplin, and Stevie Mitchell. 

Shaka Smart’s proof of concept was evident in an 8-2 ATS conclusion to the regular season, during which his squad ranked 10th in defensive efficiency (BartTorvik). 

Freshman guard Nigel James Jr. transformed into a star, and Marquette blew out Providence and upset UConn in its last two games.

Tre Carroll, who leads Xavier and is second in the conference in scoring at 18.0 ppg, was injured in the finale and may be absent or hobbled.

Tucker DeVries has been a jack of all trades for the Indiana Hoosiers, playing the wing but also banging down low with the Hoosiers’ rotation running short. They meet a Northwestern Wildcats team also going small without 6-foot-11 forward Arrinten Page (illness). Even with Page in, Northwestern plays small. It gets beat up in the paint and roughed up rebounds. DeVries is a tough matchup. He’s able to bully smaller defenders and burn bigger ones from the perimeter. He’s averaging 14.5 points over his last eight outings and projections range from 14 to as high as 17 points tonight.

This game will live in the halfcourt, the number of assists on Robert McCray still feels short. He’s the leading facilitator of pretty much any action the Noles run, and they have some clear scoring advantages. 

Expect an offensive affair on Wednesday night. Since January 1, both Boston and Lehigh rank Top 25 nationally in 3-point accuracy. The Terriers rank second in that span, hitting 41.2% from deep while taking 43.5% of their attempts from beyond the arc. They also rank sixth in eFG% since the start of the year. The Mountain Hawks have hit on 38.6% of their long-range efforts and face a Boston team that allowed Patriot League opponents to shoot 35.9% from deep.

DePaul is a Big East power. 

Wait, let me rephrase that. DePaul is a power at covering spreads in the Big East Tournament. 

The Blue Demons have covered each of their last five games in this tournament at Madison Square Garden with an average cover margin of 11 points. That includes 2025’s outright upset of Georgetown (+5) and near-upset of Creighton in overtime (+13) and 2024’s one-point loss against Villanova (+24.5). 

Their defense, which ranks 27th in adjusted efficiency over the last month (BartTorvik), is the strongest unit on the court and limited the Hoyas to 60.0 ppg in the two regular-season matchups. 

Even at full strength, the Minnesota Golden Gophers stay in low gear. They’re among the slowest attacks, living in the halfcourt and eating deep into the shot clock. The Gophers see a healthy dip in production when they leave The Barn, going 4-7 O/U on the road. This is a neutral site in Chicago, but Minnesota has made less than 44% of its field goals away from home. With just six capable bodies, Minnesota will rest on offense and save its energy for defense. That means putting the breaks on a Rutgers Scarlett Knights team that wants to play in the open court.