🏀 College Basketball Predictions Today: Rick Pitino to Cover Again

A whopping 11 NCAA Tournament bids will be handed out today, with all other college basketball conference tournaments in the semifinal round on this penultimate day of the regular season. 

My college basketball predictions today include my most confident wagers on one of those championship games from the Big East. I am also riding Alex Condon's hot hand, but fading a Big Ten player off a historic performance with my two player prop wagers.

Our college basketball conference tournament guide provides all the info you need ahead of Selection Sunday.      

🏀 College basketball predictions today: Best player props & ATS picks

See all of our experts' college basketball picks based on the latest college basketball odds; picks rated on a 1-to-5 star confidence scale based on betting value.

Total wagered: 4.0 units | Max profit: 3.54 units

💰 Best college basketball bet today

UConn vs. St. John's prediction: St. John's +3.5 (-118) 

After yesterday’s 10-point win, Rick Pitino’s teams are 27-6-1 ATS in Conference Tournaments since 2009. They have covered eight straight such games, and the Red Storm are 19-2 ATS under Pitino in the Big East Tournament.

St. John’s is more built for quick turnarounds than UConn, as the Red Storm can go deeper into the bench. There is also the issue that this is a de facto home game for St. John’s playing at Madison Square Garden, the building where they beat the Huskies by nine after forcing 15 turnovers and allowing just 1.05 points per possession.

🔥 More college basketball picks & player props today

Penn vs. Harvard prediction: Harvard -2.5 (-110) 

Harvard has +425 odds to win the Ivy League Tournament at BetMGM, and those 19.05% implied odds are more encouraging than Penn’s 13.33% implied odds (+650) to win two games in two days to earn the league’s automatic NCAA Tournament bid.

Yale was the league’s preseason favorite and is widely considered the Ivy’s best chance of pulling an upset in the NCAA Tournament. But Harvard finished just one game behind the Bulldogs, and own the league’s second-best record in Quad 1 through Quad 3 games.

The Crimson and Quakers split the two regular meetings, with the games decided by four total points. But I give Harvard the edge in the rubber match thanks to its ability to ice games at the free throw line (owning the nation’s second-best free throw percentage), and its league best scoring, 2-point, and 3-point percentage defense.

Nick Boyd Under 21.5 points (-120) vs. Michigan

Wisconsin has ridden its two guards, Nick Boyd and John Blackwell to a third consecutive Big Ten Tournament semifinal appearance or better. A day after Blackwell scored a program record 34 points in the win over Washington, Boyd topped it with his 38-point performance yesterday. 

I am selling high on Boyd in this matchup against the longer Wolverines defense. Michigan allows free throws at the 15th-lowest rate in the country, and I expect it to get the ball out of Boyd’s hands more than when he scored 22 against the Wolverines in the regular season win.

This is a four-star contrarian play after yesterday’s record-setting performance, as Boyd was dealing with cramping issues in the second half yesterday, and has another short turnaround today. 

Alex Condon Over 16.5 points (-105) vs. Vanderbilt

This is a four-star contrarian play after yesterday’s record-setting performance, as Boyd was dealing with cramping issues in the second half yesterday and has another short turnaround.

The Over on Alex Condon’s 15.5 points easily cashed in yesterday’s win over Kentucky, as the Gators forward finished with a game-high 22 points on 7-of-12 shooting from the floor.

Head coach Todd Golden is clearly riding Condon’s hot hand of late, as Condon has now scored 20-plus in five of the last seven games, after reaching that mark just twice in the 19 games prior. 

Playing time shouldn’t be a concern for Condon on no days’ rest, as he ranks 24th in percentage of his team’s minutes in SEC play. He now gets a juicy matchup against an undersized Vanderbilt team that the Gators torched for 98 points and 1.35 points per possession in the regular season.

💡 How I'm betting college basketball today

Follow all of our college basketball analysis and expert predictions this season.

With my four-star play on the St. John's point spread, I'm placing full confidence in Rick Pitino's motivation tactics, as the Red Storm lost by 32 points and made just 11 of 56 field goal attempts in its last meeting with UConn. 

From a player prop perspective, one has to have a short memory and not overreact to one game's performance, which is what I'm doing by backing the Under on Boyd's points. His O/U is as low as 20.5 at FanDuel, so I also benefited from some sports book shopping with his odds.

In Condon's case, I'm not overreacting to one solid game as he has a much larger sample size, especially recently, of being Florida's number one scoring option.

🚀 Best college basketball parlay picks today

In addition to the four wagers above, I'm adding a play on UMBC's moneyline odds against Vermont as a fifth leg for this parlay.

Since 2023, favorites in America East Tournament games are 19-1 SU, the best mark of any conference. Adding UMBC to this parlay brings the odds from +1141 to a more enticing +1863.