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Nick Federline's college basketball betting picks for the First Round of the NCAA Tournament. He analyzes CBB Vegas lines and recommends the top expert bets including spreads and over/unders.
With a newly revealed NCAA Tournament bracket, we have finally made it to the long-awaited single elimination tournament that America has fallen in love with. Once you're done here, be sure to also check out the rest of our NCAA Tournament articles and analysis including previews, predictions, sleepers, busts and guides on how to fill out your brackets.
The 2020-2021 College Basketball season was an accomplishment in and of itself, and we are lucky to have a regular season completed. As we enter the Tournament, we relish in our final opportunities to bet on these lucky 68 participants one last time before the end of the year. The First Round of the tournament brings the traditional "David vs. Goliath" matchups of old. Whether it's Georgia State Coach Ron Hunter falling off his chair after watching his son RJ upset Baylor, witnessing Jimmer Fredette's 40-footers, Steph Curry's magical 2008 tournament run, or hearing "One Shining Moment" one more time, there can be no debate that great moments will be made, and that this is the most wonderful time of the year.
Here are some of the top college basketball betting picks for the First Round (Friday and Saturday, March 19 and 20, 2021). Let me know your thoughts, and follow along with the action on Twitter @fredetterline. All game times below are Eastern Standard Time. Season record to date: 29-22.
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#11 Utah State vs. #6 Texas Tech - 1:45 PM, Friday
The Utah State Aggies snuck into the NCAA Tournament on the back of a strong Mountain West Conference tournament run where they fell in the Championship game to San Diego State. Entering the tourney, Utah State has a 2-5 record against "Quad 1" opponents, with zero signature out-of-conference wins. The star of the show for the Aggies is their Portuguese center Neemias Queta, a 7-foot behemoth who leads the team in scoring (15.1 ppg), rebounding (10.0 rpg), and rim protection (a staggering 3.2 blocks per game). Down the late stretches of games, Queta has made such improvements to his free throw technique (56.5% free throw shooter as a freshman, and 71.0% free throw shooter this year asa junior) that he now can be trusted late in games. His sidekick Justin Bean is an under-sized forward from Moore, Oklahoma, that rebounds well above his size. Fellow junior guards Marco Anthony and Brock Miller are dangerous perimeter threats that can punish teams who give them too many open opportunities. The Aggies have a strong nucleus, and Coach Craig Smith's team won't take their second consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance for granted. The game will be played at the equivalent of 11:45 am Mountain time for the Aggies.
Coach Chris Beard has ushered in a new period of greatness in Lubbock. Despite a largely new team since the 2019 Final Four squad, the Red Raiders earned a #6 seed and are a dark horse candidate to repeat their tournament run. Georgetown transfer Mac McClung has ice in his veins and is a bona-fide "go-to" scorer. Fellow transfers Marcus Santos-Silva (VCU) and Jamarius "Grandpa" Burton (Wichita State) have given Coach Beard's team an immediate injection of experience to pair with a few strong NBA guard prospects in Terrence Shannon and Kyler Edwards. Unlike their opponents, who boast a strong #9 ranking in defensive efficiency metrics but lag behind in terms of their offense, the Red Raiders have relatively strong marks for both sides of the floor - ranking 33rd and 24th in terms of offensive and defensive efficiency, respectively.
Pick: Texas Tech -4
#15 Oral Roberts vs. #2 Ohio State - 3:00 PM, Friday
Coach Paul Mills' team was able to defeat North Dakota State in the Summit League Championship on March 9, giving the Summit League its first non-Dakota champion in over a decade (South Dakota State and North Dakota State combined for the last 10 championships). The Golden Eagles are led by their fiery scoring guard Max Abmas, who leads the nation in scoring at 24.4 ppg. Over half of Abmas' attempted field goals are three-pointers, which he converts at a stellar 43.8% rate. Oral Roberts will seek early to turn the game into a track meet, and forward Kevin Obanor's more traditional post-game and nearly double-double average will be ever more important against the larger Buckeyes. As a team, they are uber-reliant on the triples, averaging 11.3 made three-pointers per game (1st in the nation) out of 29 attempts per game (6th in the nation). If Ohio State can neutralize the perimeter (a BIG if), this could be a very abbreviated stay in the tournament for the Tulsa, Oklahoma, school and alma mater of television pastor Joel Osteen.
The Ohio State Buckeyes are fresh off a disheartening overtime loss to Illinois on Selection Sunday in the Big Ten Championship game. They were forced to play without a key starter in Kyle Young (concussion), and they rattled off wins over Purdue and Michigan to put themselves in position to clinch the title. Entering the Big Ten tournament, however, the Buckeyes were on a 4-game skid. Junior guard Duane Washington has been sensational of late, and leads the scoring at 16.3 ppg. Hybrid forward EJ Lidell - a 6-foot-7, 240-pound matchup nightmare - is right behind at 15.9 ppg and is a threat from anywhere on the floor. Three of the team's other key contributors - point guard CJ Walker (Florida State), wing Justice Sueing (Cal) and forward Seth Towns (Harvard) - started their careers elsewhere but have brought a wealth of experience to Columbus. To make a deep run, the Buckeyes will need to keep better care of the basketball (their 10.4 turnovers per game ranks 336th in the country), and collapse on the Golden Eagles' shooters in Round 1.
Pick: Ohio State First Half -9.5
#13 Ohio vs. #4 Virginia - 7:15 PM, Saturday
The Ohio Bobcats enter the tournament as a dangerous potential "Cinderella," powered by their star combo guard Jason Preston. Preston, a 6-foot-4 ball-dominant guard, averages 16.6 ppg, 6.8 rebounds per game, and dishes out 7.2 assists per game. You would be hard-pressed to find an individual player more crucial to his team's success than Preston has been this season. The Bobcats entered the MAC tournament as the league's #5 seed, only to win three straight over Kent State, Toledo and Buffalo to hoist the trophy and earn the league's automatic bid for the first time since 2012. Preston will need to get some help from the two upperclassman 6-foot-8 forwards - Dwight Wilson and Ben Vander Plas. Wilson spends his time on the block as a traditional post player, whereas the Wisconsin native Vander Plas plays the role of a stretch-four with great success. A narrow 2-point loss to Illinois in nonconference play is a good example of just how capable these Bobcats are if properly dialed in.
The defending champion 'Hoos enter the tournament fresh off of a COVID-19 cancellation in the ACC tournament and in the midst of quarantining protocols. The team has been unable to practice or gather together all week in person, relying on Zoom team meetings. Coach Tony Bennett's squad does not yet know which players will or won't be traveling with the team when they depart for the Indianapolis bubble on Friday, but his coaching acumen should give Cavaliers fans hope that he can muster together wins without key players if needed. Virginia's overall 18-6 record this year and 6th ranked scoring defense appear promising on the surface. However, they finished the year 3-3, and the 3 wins weren't against any of the top tier ACC squads. The defense will be tested, and the open question of who might even be available to play has me worried against a strong mid-major squad like Ohio.
Pick: Ohio +8
Coach Mark Schmidt's Bonnies boast a strong 6-3 total record against Quad 1 and 2 teams, earning both the regular season and conference tournament championships in the perennially underrated Atlantic 10 Conference. Junior guard Kyle Lofton is the star of this team and attracts much of the opposing team's attention, but all five starters score in double figures and ball movement is critical in Coach Schmidt's offense. One player who is finally getting the respect he deserves is the 6-foot-10 center Osun Osunniyi, a native of Pleasantville, New Jersey. Osunniyi is in his 3rd year as a starter in upstate New York, and continues to put on block parties. His stat line - 10.5 ppg, 9.5 rebounds per game, and 2.9 blocks per game - is among the nation's top rim protector's stat lines, and he was awarded as the Atlantic 10 Tournament MVP on Sunday. The Bonnies will seek to limit possessions, slow the pace of the game, and rattle the Tigers early.
Coach Will Wade was embroiled in NCAA scandals as recently as 2020, but still helms the role of leader of the LSU basketball program. Under Wade's leadership, the Tigers have had great success and earned a 3rd place finish in the SEC. Wade's teams are the polar opposite of the Bonnies and like to turn up the dial to 11 in terms of speed. LSU's 8th ranked scoring offense (82.1 ppg) is charged by four scorers in double figures. Freshman phenom Cameron Thomas, a consensus five-star recruit, has averaged 22.6 ppg in his first year on campus in Baton Rouge, and looks like a surefire NBA draft pick. His colleague in the backcourt is junior Javonte Smart, who averages 15.9 ppg and dishes out 4 assists per game. The talent hardly stops there, with likely future NBA forward Trendon Watford also chipping in 16.7 ppg from the post. If LSU can dictate the pace, they have the offensive firepower to run the Bonnies out of the gym. However, they have yet to face a team with this slow of a pace, and the quality of rim protection that the Bonnies have. If the Bonnies are composed in the first few minutes of play, I expect them to dictate the pace - as they did against a similar "run 'n gun" VCU offense in the Atlantic 10 tournament Championship.
Pick: Under 143
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