NCAAB Best Bets for Friday, November 12, 2021

We’ve already seen a ton of great games in College Basketball and we’ve had some upsets, buzzer beaters, and all things that make basketball so great. We are ready for the first weekend of college basketball and we are here to give you some picks for Friday night’s games.

Army at Duke

The first official home game for the Blue Devils see them welcoming the Army into Cameron Indoor Stadium. Duke took home a hard-fought, but a convincing win over Kentucky in their opener. That game to me was a great level-set for the team to see where their talent lies. In the opener, Freshman guard Trevor Keels dropped 25 points, and Freshman forward Paolo Banchero put in 22. The two accounted for over half of the Duke points. In order to win, they will need more of the team to contribute. Army played against the SUNY New Paltz Hawks… I had to look up what the hell that was. Army rolled them by 31 points. The roles will be reversed now that they face a real basketball program. Play Duke to win this game with ease and cover the spread of 25.5 at -115.

Indiana State at Purdue

Purdue is another ranked team taking on an unranked opponent. That doesn’t mean that Indiana State can’t win, but the likelihood isn’t really there. I doesn’t matter anyway, this play is on the Boilermakers to pour in buckets tonight. In their first game, against Bellarmine, they dropped 96 points. Indiana State is coming off of a matchup where they won, but allowed 77 points to a Green Bay school. The talent on Purdue is clearly superior to that of the Green Bay team. I expect the pace to be high and would be comfortable taking the over on both sides, but I’ll play Purdue to be in the 90’s again and take their team total over 86.5 at -120.

Villanova at UCLA

This is another fun matchup to start the season. We have Villanova, the fourth-ranked team in the nation, taking on UCLA, the number two team in the country. It is never easy to travel across the country and win a basketball game, so at home UCLA has the edge. Both teams have a good mix of upper-classmen and younger talent. However, UCLA did lose one of their starters, Cody Riley, in the opener and he won’t be available for this game. I think this is a hard matchup for Villanova, but am more comfortable getting the points than I am laying them. I’ll take the Wildcats +3.5 at -120.