No. 2 Purdue takes on No. 8 Alabama in the marquee college basketball game of the night on Thursday.
We have a best bet for that key affair, however, there's also other value to be had in the sport from a betting perspective.
Read below for college basketball best bets, picks, predictions and odds for Thursday, November 13.
College Basketball Best Bets
| Game | Time (ET) | Pick |
|---|---|---|
  | 7 p.m. | |
  | 8 p.m. | |
  | 9 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. | ||
Purdue vs. Alabama
By Sean Paul
The game of the night in college basketball will be a battle of contrasting styles at Coleman Coliseum.
Alabama plays at one of the fastest tempos in the country and won't attempt a single mid-range shot unless Labaron Philon Jr. finds one.
Meanwhile, Purdue plays at the 329th-fastest tempo in the country and likely will be more interior-oriented with Trey Kaufman-Renn back from an injury that held him out for the first two games of the season.
I feel like Alabama is too explosive, and slowing down the Tide in their house will be very difficult.
Give me Alabama and its dominant guards — Philon, Latrell Wrightsell Jr. and Aden Holloway — to cover.
Pick: Alabama -2.5 (Play to -5)
Read Sean's full preview and prediction for this matchup:
FIU vs. LSU
By Evan Abrams
The LSU Tigers host the FIU Panthers in a buy game, non-conference affair. The good news for the Tigers is there's no lookahead spot ahead, with two more buy games — against Alcorn State and Omaha — on deck.
The bad news is that one of my systems — "Betting The Bad" — is backing the Panthers to cover this large 21-point spread.
In college basketball, teams that have struggled against the spread and are coming off a decisive loss often become undervalued by the market, particularly when facing large double-digit spreads. FIU got obliterated in its last game against Nebraska, losing by 30 points and failing to cover the 21.5-point spread on the road.
After poor performances, oddsmakers tend to overadjust, creating opportunities for motivated teams to outperform expectations even without winning outright.
The combination of public bias against losing teams and the natural tendency for effort and variance to stabilize makes these spots profitable over time.
By backing teams that appear to be playing poorly but are priced at their lowest point, this system identifies where perception has drifted too far from performance reality, leading to consistent value against inflated lines.
Pick: FIU +21
Cal vs. Kansas State
I’m mainly banking on the regression train hitting Kansas State. The Wildcats have shot a ridiculous 56% from deep through their first two games, a mark wholly unsustainable, especially for a group that had spacing and shooting concerns entering the season.
Cal has switched up its ball-screen coverage this year to more hedge-and-recover, but the Bears ran a deep drop last year, which was elite in preventing 3-point opportunities. We’ll see if these first few games were an aberration.
However, if Mark Madsen decides to play more aggressive ball-screen coverage, that might be a good thing, as the Bears will hedge the ball out of PJ Haggerty’s hands and force a group of unproven complementary players to make plays.
The Wildcats have run a boatload of perimeter ball screens with Haggerty in the fold, and this won’t be the easiest matchup.
Additionally, Wildcats have turned the ball over a ton in the first few games (23%, 305th nationally) and could fold under Cal’s blitz.
Cal has been mainly running motion-based concepts, including plenty of cuts and off-ball screens for Justin Pippen, Dai Dai Ames and Josh Camden.
Jerome Tang typically coaches up gritty perimeter defenders who can hold against that type of attack, and this year’s roster will be led by Nate Johnson, last year’s MAC Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year.
Also, this could be a challenging game for Cal, given the Bears are traveling cross-country for their first road game in the ever-intimidating Octagon Of Doom.
Still, I’m mostly hoping that Kansas State goes cold from deep.
Given we project 155.2 points for this game, I’d play the under at 159.5 or better, which represents a four-point-plus difference between our projections and the market.
Pick: Under 162.5 (Play to 159.5)
Click here to read and see Tanner's daily projections:
