March Madness Player Props & Best Bets for Thursday: First Round Schedule, Predictions
Nothing on the sports calendar compares to the first few days of the NCAA Tournament, and we offer our top March Madness player props and best bets for Thursday's first round based on the best March Madness odds.
Thursday's 16 NCAA Tournament games carry plenty of intrigue. Starting at 12:15 p.m. ET, legendary Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo leads his Spartans into battle in essentially a coin-flip game against Mississippi State. That's just one of four games on tap with point spreads of 2-points or fewer, and two have the lower-seeded team favored (Nevada over Dayton, Drake over Washington State).
Elsewhere, possible Cinderellas in No. 12 seed McNeese and No. 13 seed Samford look to shake up the Midwest Region when facing Gonzaga and Kansas (without leading scorer Kevin McCullar), respectively.
As part of our March Madness predictions, here are our March Madness player props and best bets for Thursday (college basketball picks based on odds from our best March Madness betting sites; pick confidence based on a 1-to-5-star scale).
Thursday’s March Madness best bets
- Pelle Larsson Over 12.5 points vs. Long Beach State (+108 via FanDuel) ⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Reed Sheppard Over 2.5 3-pointers vs. Oakland (+136 via FanDuel) ⭐⭐⭐
- DaRon Holmes Under 28.5 points + rebounds vs. Nevada (-110 via DraftKings) ⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Rylan Jones 5+ assists vs. Kansas (+160 via bet365) ⭐⭐⭐
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Thursday’s March Madness schedule and odds
(Odds via Caesars)
- Michigan State vs. Mississippi State | Spread: Michigan State -1.5 | Total: 130.5
- Duquesne vs. BYU | Spread: BYU -9.5 | Total: 142
- Akron vs. Creighton | Spread: Creighton -13 | Total: 141
- Long Beach State vs. Arizona | Spread: Arizona -20.5 | Total: 163.5
- Wagner vs. North Carolina | Spread: North Carolina -24.5 | Total: 133.5
- Morehead State vs. Illinois | Spread: Illinois -12 | Total: 148
- Oregon vs. South Carolina | Spread: South Carolina -1 | Total: 133
- Nevada vs. Dayton | Spread: Nevada -1 | Total: 136.5
- Colorado State vs. Texas | Spread: Texas -2.5 | Total: 145
- Oakland vs. Kentucky | Spread: Kentucky -14 | Total: 163.5
- McNeese vs. Gonzaga | Spread: Gonzaga -6.5 | Total: 150
- South Dakota State vs. Iowa State | Spread: Iowa State -16 | Total: 135
- Saint Peter’s vs. Tennessee | Spread: Tennessee -21.5 | Total: 129.5
- NC State vs. Texas Tech | Spread: Texas Tech -5 | Total: 145.5
- Samford vs. Kansas | Spread: Kansas -7 | Total: 153
- Drake vs. Washington State | Spread: Drake -1.5 | Total: 138
March Madness betting odds pages
Thursday’s March Madness player props
Pelle Larsson Over 13.5 points vs. Long Beach State (+108 via FanDuel) ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Arizona is the third-highest-scoring team in the country at 87.9 points per game but has not looked anything like an offensive juggernaut of late, averaging 64.7 points over the last three games.
However, USC and Oregon masterfully made the Wildcats play half-court offense, but Long Beach State will do anything but that, as it plays at the 29th-fastest tempo in the country.
Pelle Larsson has scored 12 or fewer points in four consecutive games, but that does not tell the whole story, as he was still in double figures in each of the team’s last two low-scoring contests.
Arizona averages the third-most paint points per game (42.6) in Division I, and Larsson also has made 55% of his 3-point attempts over the last two games, so he should get plenty of opportunities to fill the stat sheet against a Beach defense that defended the 3-point line at the worst rate of any Big Sky team.
FanDuel and bet365 offer the same -120 odds for Larsson to go over his standard projected total of 12.5 points, but we prefer the value of Larsson’s alternate point total at FanDuel. A winning $10 wager at FanDuel’s +108 odds would pay out $20.80 as opposed to $18.33 at -120 odds.
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Reed Sheppard Over 2.5 3-pointers vs. Oakland (+136 via FanDuel) ⭐⭐⭐
Kentucky’s three leading scorers, Antonio Reeves, Rob Dillingham, and Reed Sheppard, all shoot 44.1% or better from 3-point range, which is a big reason the Wildcats rank second in the country in scoring behind Alabama. Kentucky’s shooting prowess makes it a difficult matchup for Oakland, which uses a matchup zone on nearly every possession.
Reed Sheppard has made a team-high 52.5% of his 3-point attempts and shoots them at the second-highest rate. We expect him to play well off the ball and be the primary beneficiary of Dillingham’s and Reeves’ shot creation, just as he has the last two games when he made 10 3-pointers combined against Texas A&M and Tennessee.
The best value for this play is at FanDuel, as bet365 and DraftKings offer +130 and +135 odds, respectively, for Sheppard to make three or more 3-pointers.
DaRon Holmes Under 28.5 points + rebounds vs. Nevada (-110 via DraftKings) ⭐⭐⭐⭐
DaRon Holmes became the fifth player in A-10 history to win conference Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year in the same season. Though he averaged a combined 28.8 points and rebounds per game this season, we expect him to be the focal point of a stingy Nevada defense, which has us finding value in the Under for his points and rebounds projection.
Nevada is an excellent rim-protecting team, as its 26.2 paint points per game allowed were the fewest in the Mountain West.
Holmes is capable of stretching a defense, with at least one made 3-pointer in three of the last four games. However, we also believe regression is coming from his 30 free-throw attempts in the last two games, even if the Wolf Pack allowed free throws at the eighth-highest rate of any Mountain West team.
FanDuel charges -111 odds to back the same wager, so we are getting slightly better value by placing this bet at DraftKings.
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Rylan Jones to record five or more assists vs. Kansas (+160 via bet365) ⭐⭐⭐
Samford point guard Rylan Jones averages a team-high 4.9 assists per game, and no other Bulldogs player averages more than 2.6 assists per game on the season. Granted, Samford has not played a KenPom top-100 team since the first two games of the season, but it assists on 57.7% of its made field goals (41st in D-I). We expect “Bucky Ball” to score much more than the 55 points the Bulldogs averaged in losses to Purdue and VCU to start the season.
Jones went 18 consecutive games this season with four-plus assists from late November through the end of January and has finished with four or more assists in three of the previous four games.
Samford will look to overwhelm a limited Kansas bench (the Jayhawks rank 318th in bench minutes) by pushing the pace and maximizing possessions, especially in the altitude of Salt Lake City. In addition, Jones should draw the primary defensive assignment from Dajuan Harris, the 2023 Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year, which should lower his ceiling for scoring, but raise his stock for assists.
DraftKings and bet365 offer -135 odds to back Jones’ Over of 3.5 assists, but if we are banking him on totaling at least four assists, the +160 price for him to end with one more assist (five or more total) is worth the stab at generous plus-money odds.
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College basketball best bets made Wednesday at 6:37 a.m. ET.
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