College Basketball Player Props & Best Bets Today: Schedule, Picks for Saturday

Saturday marks the last full slate of college basketball games ahead of a lighter schedule through the holidays, and we have you covered with our daily college basketball player props and best bets for Saturday based on the best college basketball odds at the best sports betting apps.

The Big East has been the talk of college basketball this week, though not for the reasons it'd hope.

The conference’s top three teams in the preseason (UConn, Marquette, and Creighton) were all ranked in the AP top 12 this week, and all suffered shock defeats in their league debuts. 

UConn gets a chance to avenge that first loss to Seton Hall on Saturday, while the Big East comprises four of Saturday’s 17-game Division-I schedule.

Here are our college basketball player props and best bets for Saturday (odds via our best March Madness betting sites; pick confidence based on a 1-to-5-star scale).

Saturday’s college basketball schedule and odds

(Odds via DraftKings)

• Butler vs. Providence (-6)
• Mississippi State (-3) vs. Rutgers
• Ole Miss (-10) vs. Southern Miss
• Seton Hall vs. Xavier (-4)
• Arizona (-6.5) vs. Florida Atlantic
• Vanderbilt vs. Memphis (-16.5)
• Villanova (-12) vs. DePaul
• St. John’s vs. UConn (-11.5)

Saturday’s college basketball best bets

• Caleb Love (Arizona) Over 17.5 points (-115 via DraftKings) vs. Florida Atlantic ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• Matthew Murrell (Ole Miss) Over 2.5 3-pointers (+100 via DraftKings) vs. Southern Mississippi ⭐⭐⭐
• DePaul +7 first half (-110 via Caesars) vs. Villanova ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• St. John’s-UConn Over 147.5 (-110 via Caesars) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

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Saturday’s college basketball player props

Caleb Love (Arizona) Over 17.5 points (-115 via DraftKings) vs. Florida Atlantic ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Caleb Love has scored 18 or more points in three of 10 games this season and is the catalyst of an offense that ranks second in the country in scoring at 92.3 points per game. Love has saved two of his best performances for some of the team’s biggest games, as he scored 49 combined points against Purdue and Wisconsin this month, and has shot 50% or better from deep in four of the last seven games while attempting 53 total shots beyond the arc in that span.

Love should have plenty of opportunities to create off ball screens against Florida Atlantic’s drop coverage that was torched for 66 combined points from Illinois guards Terrence Shannon and Marcus Domask at Madison Square Garden earlier this month. The Owls rank outside the top 200 in defending the 3-point line and have allowed an average of 93.5 points in their two games against top-25 KenPom teams. This is a confident four-star play, as Love should be heavily involved in the scoring for an Arizona team with an implied team total of 84 points.

DraftKings and bet365 offer the same price for this wager, but bet365 has more offerings in the “points milestones” alternate market, where one can back Love at +145 odds to score 20 or more points, for example.

Matthew Murrell (Ole Miss) Over 2.5 3-pointers (+100 via DraftKings) vs. Southern Mississippi ⭐⭐⭐

Ole Miss is one of three remaining unbeaten teams left in the country and has achieved that largely because of blistering 3-point shooting against a weak non-conference schedule. The Rebels may rank just 11th out of 14 SEC teams in scoring (74.7 points per game), but they are 15th in the country with a 39.3% 3-point shooting percentage and have made double-digit threes in consecutive games.

Matthew Murrell has attempted five-plus 3-pointers in eight of 11 games and has made three or more in three of the previous five. He faces a Southern Mississippi defense that ranks 300th or worse in effective field goal percentage defense and 3-point percentage allowed, which is a recipe for disaster when it does not run teams off the 3-point line effectively (291st in 3-point attempts per field goal attempt). 

Ole Miss also ranks in the top 25 in assists per field goal made, and we expect Murrell to again be the beneficiary of the Rebels’ talented shot creators and to fire away early and often from the perimeter. The plus-money odds offered at DraftKings trump the -105 odds found at bet365.

Saturday’s college basketball game picks

DePaul +7 first half (-110 via Caesars) vs. Villanova ⭐⭐⭐⭐

DePaul looks like it is headed for another last-place finish in the Big East after getting off to just a 2-8 start, and that makes the 11.5-point full-game spread unappealing. However, we expect Villanova to be sluggish after an emotional come-from-behind overtime road victory against Creighton on Wednesday. Thus, DePaul should be the fresher team over the first 20 minutes, having not played since last Saturday.

Villanova shot 28% in the first half against Creighton and trailed 34-24 at the break, and that marked the fourth consecutive game the Wildcats have failed to shoot 30% or eclipse the 25-point mark in the first half. The Wildcats should also take time to adjust to a DePaul defense that is adept at running teams off the 3-point line (the Blue Demons rank in the top 80 in the country in 3-point attempt rate allowed), which should be an issue for a Wildcats offense that shoots 49.4% of its shots from deep (sixth-highest). 

St. John’s-UConn Over 147.5 (-110 via Caesars) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

St. John’s head coach Rick Pitino has often said he was successful in the transfer portal by bringing in scorers, but many of his newcomers have not completely bought in on the defensive end. The metrics support that so far, as the Red Storm’s offense (ranked 45th in adjusted offensive efficiency) is ahead of the defense (68th in adjusted defensive efficiency). 

St. John’s finishes many of its possessions with scores thanks to the third-highest offensive rebounding rate in the country (it rebounds 43.1% of its misses). That will be a big area for the Red Storm to exploit if UConn big man Donovan Clingan does not play after he was limited to just 14 minutes with an ankle injury against Seton Hall. His presence was missed, as the Pirates scored 1.21 points per possession in Wednesday’s upset, unheard of against a UConn defense.

With or without Clingan, the Huskies run numerous impressive offensive sets with constant motion and off-the-ball cutting, resulting in a top-three adjusted offensive efficiency. And while St. John’s is usually disruptive on the defensive end, forcing turnovers at a 21% clip, the Huskies do not put the ball on the floor as much as the average team, and they take care of the basketball with a top 60 turnover rate. 

The Over is 15-7-1 in UConn’s 23 home games since the start of last season, and we expect another high-scoring affair in this Big East matchup. Over backers have their choice of four of our best sports betting apps, as FanDuel is the only one with a total slightly higher at 148.5.

College basketball best bets made 12/23/2023 at 6:42 a.m. ET

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