No. 19 Kansas vs. No. 25 North Carolina from Chapel Hill is the highlight of our Friday college basketball slate.
But that's not the only spot that has betting value in the sport.
Read below for college basketball best bets, including NCAAB expert picks and three predictions for Friday, November 7.
College Basketball Best Bets
The team logos in the table below represent each of the matchups that our college basketball betting staff is targeting from today's slate of games. Click on the team logos for any of the matchups below to navigate to a specific bet discussed in this article.
| Game | Time (ET) | Pick |
|---|---|---|
  | 7 p.m. | |
  | 9 p.m. | |
  | 10 p.m. | |
Specific betting recommendations come from the sportsbook offering preferred odds as of writing. Always shop for the best price using our NCAAB Odds page, which automatically surfaces the best lines for every game. | ||
Western Illinois vs. Iowa
If you’re not familiar with the new Iowa, here’s a phrase to help you out: The Hawkeyes are last year’s Drake team on steroids.
New head coach Ben McCollum brought his best player, All-American candidate Bennett Stirtz, with him to Iowa City along with four other key pieces from last season's NCAA Tournament team.
To round out the roster, McCollum fished out talented sophomore Cooper Koch from the portal and added two fantastic transfers in shooter Brendan Hausen and big man Alvaro Folgueiras.
The first game was a taste of what’s in store for the rest of the nation this season. Iowa blew the doors off Robert Morris — an NCAA Tournament team in 2024-25 — by 32 points. The Hawkeyes meticulously broke down the opposition with precise, patient offense and suffocated it on the defensive end.
Western Illinois was feisty in its first game against Radford, but this team lacks the talent and the skill to hang with Iowa. The Chad Boudreau-led Leathernecks have played three games against power competition (all in 2024). They lost by 37, 32 and 22.
Stopping Iowa’s offense will be impossible for last year’s 349th-ranked defense, and scoring will be a chore against a physical perimeter supported by two backend stoppers in Folgueiras and Cam Manyawu.
A blowout is coming.
Pick: Iowa -29.5 (Play to -30)
Idaho State vs. San Diego
There’s an unspoken rule in college basketball betting, and that rule goes: fade Steve Lavin no matter how much talent he seemingly has.
Lavin has been on cruise control since taking the San Diego job. He’s finished 13-37 in the WCC across three seasons and has finished below his preseason KenPom rank in two of those three years. This is all while having objectively good rosters on paper.
The opposite can be said about Idaho State head coach Ryan Looney, a severely underrated coach who's outperformed his preseason KenPom rank in three straight seasons and five of his six years at Idaho State.
His Bengals play a scrappy, physical brand of basketball that lends to them being able to hang around with more talented teams.
This game features an undisciplined team that will roll the balls out and a well-coached squad that will execute to a T. Look for Idaho State — the nation’s sixth-best offensive rebounding team last season — to pound San Diego on the glass and win the shot count battle.
It’s also worth noting that Idaho State took care of the Toreros at the Slim Jim last season by 12 points, controlling the game the entire way and dominating in every facet.
Pick: Idaho State +6 (Play to +4)
UIC vs. Oregon State
UIC is overrated by analytic sites, plain and simple. The Flames flipped their entire roster and brought in, frankly, underwhelming transfers.
UIC rode hot shooting (11-for-26 from deep) and a ridiculous 36 free throw attempts to beat Detroit Mercy by 20 in its first game. But like Shania Twain, that don’t impress me much.
Oregon State had its fair share of talent drain as well this offseason, but that’s never stopped Wayne Tinkle from being a master game planner and mucking it up on the defensive end.
Expect the Beavers to slow this game to a half-court affair — the exact opposite of what the up-tempo Flames want.
Tinkle will throw out junk zones and force UIC to prove it can shoot over 40% from range again. Foul discipline will need to be there for Oregon State, but the Beavers stayed out of trouble against North Dakota State and were successful last season in that department.
Look for Oregon State to stop UIC’s ball-screen action. The Flames need dribble penetration off screens to score at the cup and set up kicks for shooters, but the Beavers' zone and strong positional size should give the UIC ball-handlers issues.
The travel all the way out to the West Coast doesn’t hurt the handicap either.
Pick: Oregon State -3.5 (Play to -4)
