Top College Basketball Picks Sunday, January 24th (2021)
As I have said in earlier columns, this season is shaping up as the toughest college basketball season to be profitable from. COVID-19 has reared its ugly head with our bets lately, as Purdue’s best shooter and second-leading scorer Sasha Stefanovic was ruled out of their game against Michigan less than two hours before tip-off due to COVID-19 protocols. Following news from certain teams is important this year, as is scouring the data to pick up on trends. The pandemic has also forced teams to pause activities for weeks at a time, and many smaller conference teams are playing back-to-back games against the same opponent to make sure they have enough games on their schedule. Nothing feels normal about this season, but we are still hitting on better than 50% of our bets.
Here are two picks for Sunday.
YTD: 68-61-1
All odds via BettingPros consensus
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Rutgers at Indiana (-5): 12:00 PM ET
After starting the season 3-1 in conference play and 7-1 overall, the Rutgers Scarlet Knights have been in a complete free-fall for the last three weeks. Rutgers has lost five straight games by an average of 10 PPG, and their offense has averaged just 61.8 PPG in that span. The fact that Rutgers’ struggles offensively do not bode well when facing an Indiana team that just held Iowa to a season-low 69 points and 5-for-23 (21.7%) from three-point range.
Scarlet Knights fans must be sick to their stomachs, as their 20-year NCAA Tournament drought was destined to come to an end last year. However, at hopes of making the tournament this year relies on securing several wins in a hurry. The good thing about the Big Ten is that the conference is so deep, which seemingly makes every win a big win.
There was not a single metric that suggested Indiana was the right side against Iowa on Thursday night, yet the Hoosiers played their best game of the season and stole one in Iowa City. Not many metrics suggest Rutgers is the right side in this game, but I believe in head coach Steve Pikiell and believe his players will play with a sense of urgency in trying to snap their five-game skid.
We always prefer to be on the contrarian side, and I cannot think of a more contrarian side than Rutgers on today’s slate. The Scarlet Knights are 0-4 ATS in their last four games, while Indiana is 4-1 ATS in their last five games. Oddsmakers know that bettors will look at these trends and figure the Hoosiers will get most of the wagers. Thus, take advantage of this over-inflated line and have confidence in a Rutgers team that is a respectable 3-3 ATS as an underdog.
Notre Dame at Miami (-2): 6:00 PM ET
Neither Notre Dame nor Miami looks destined for NCAA Tournament bids this year. While Miami can blame injuries for most of the season to their two best players (Chris Lykes and Kameron McGusty), Notre Dame should blame a poor defense that ranks last or second-to-last in the conference in most defensive metrics. However, the Fighting Irish’s defensive statistics are somewhat skewed, considering half of their conference games have been played against teams that rank in the top four in the conference in offensive efficiency. When Notre Dame has played teams that rank in the bottom half of the conference offensively, like Boston College and North Carolina, they have held them to 68 PPG.
Nothing suggests that the Miami Hurricanes will do anything offensively to take advantage of Notre Dame’s poor defense. They rank dead-last in the conference in offensive efficiency, including a league-worst 28.6% three-point percentage in conference games.
Though Notre Dame’s last three games have gone over the projected total, a regression to the mean is coming. The under is 2-1 when the Fighting Irish has four or more days off and is 3-1 when they have the rest advantage over their opponent. Notre Dame has had eight days off before this game, so that trend applies here.
In the last five meetings between these teams in Miami, their combined scores have gone over the projected total of 144 just once. Look for another low-scoring game between two of the conference’s most under-performing teams thus far.
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Mike Spector is a featured writer at BettingPros. For more from Mike, check out his archive and follow him @MikeSpector01.