Top College Basketball Picks Tuesday, February 23rd (2021)
As they have been all season long, the Gonzaga Bulldogs and Baylor Bears were ranked No. 1 and No. 2 in the latest AP Poll. Michigan’s win over Ohio State on Sunday is starting to get them into the same conversation with Gonzaga and Baylor. But most people have the Bulldogs and Bears in a class of their own and will continue to put them in a separate tier heading into the NCAA tournament.
Caesars Sportsbook by William Hill has an interesting prop bet out for bettors with this line of thinking. The odds for either Baylor or Gonzaga to win the national championship is set at +120 while betting they will not win the championship and instead taking the field has odds of -140. It is a fascinating discussion for sure, and it will be interesting to see if the odds change drastically if the Bulldogs and Bears both enter the NCAA tournament with zero losses.
Here are three picks for Tuesday.
YTD: 106-94-3
All odds via BettingPros consensus
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Notre Dame at Louisville (-3): 7:00 PM ET
The Louisville Cardinals were eviscerated by North Carolina 99-54 on the road in their previous game. The only thing worse than losing by 45 points is losing in the fashion that Notre Dame did in their last game. The Fighting Irish led 55-35 with under 17 minutes left in the second half, but Syracuse ended the game on a 40-12 run to finish the comeback. It will be easier for head coach Chris Mack to motivate his Louisville squad, who was out of the game from the beginning, than for Mike Brey to pump up the Irish, who let their game slip away. Thus, taking Louisville with its small spread in a bounce-back spot is tempting.
Notre Dame has been shooting the ball very well of late. They built a 46-32 halftime lead on the Orange after shooting 54.5% from the field and 7-for-14 from three-point range. However, Syracuse provided Louisville a blueprint for how to attack the Irish defensively. The Orange started to extend full-court pressure and did not allow Notre Dame to pick their defense apart methodically. Look for the Cardinals to turn this game into a frantic pace to once again disrupt Notre Dame’s rhythm.
Louisville is a profitable 2-1 ATS off a loss and 7-5-1 ATS as a favorite this year. Notre Dame is 7-8 ATS as an underdog this season and will likely still be licking their wounds from their last devastating loss.
Illinois (-6) at Michigan State: 7:00 PM ET
The Michigan State Spartans pulled a big upset over the weekend with a road win at Indiana. That will cause many bettors to get back on the Spartans’ bandwagon and suggest that they are back because they have a Hall of Fame coach that “rallied the troops.†However, the Spartans’ five wins in the conference have come against teams with a combined 21-52 record in league play and have not beaten a single team with a conference record better than .500. The Fighting Illini have a potential path to a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament, and these are precisely the kind of teams Michigan State has struggled with this year.
Illinois enters this game on a seven-game winning streak and is coming off their best performance. They drubbed Minnesota 94-63 in their building, where Minnesota had only lost one game prior and had beaten the likes of Michigan and Ohio State. Illinois big man Kofi Cockburn has struggled of late against the Spartans, averaging just 8.0 PPG in their two meetings last year. However, those Michigan State teams matched him with the physical Xavier Tillman, who was able to muscle Cockburn down low. This is a much less physical Spartans team, and the 6’11â€, 225-pound Marcus Bingham will have no answer for Cockburn down low.
The magic at the Breslin Center has been non-existent this year, as the Spartans are 2-9 ATS in their 11 home games. The Illini are 11-7-1 ATS as favorites this year and 4-3 ATS when favored on the road. Look for Illinois to earn another statement win to add to their No. 1 seed resume.
St. John’s at Villanova (-11): 8:00 PM ET
St. John’s turned in the biggest surprise result in the Big East so far this year when they beat Villanova 70-59 at home three weeks ago. The Wildcats lead the conference with a 1.75 assist-to-turnover ratio and average just 9.0 turnovers per game. However, the Red Storm forced Villanova into 17 turnovers and had them sped up the whole game. Look for Villanova head coach Jay Wright to find new ways to beat the pressure of St. John’s while getting comfortable looks in the half-court.
St. John’s looked like a team that was on the cusp of a late-season breakthrough after a six-game winning streak. However, they have lost two of their last three games to Butler and DePaul, the worst two league teams. That is inexcusable at any point in the season, let alone in late-February when they were putting together an at-large resume.
Since 2010, Villanova has covered 57.7% of their games as a home favorite. The Wildcats locked down defensively against Connecticut after getting shredded by Creighton and will do so again with revenge on their mind against the Johnnies.
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Mike Spector is a featured writer at BettingPros. For more from Mike, check out his archive and follow him @MikeSpector01.