Top College Basketball Parlay Picks for Thursday

Thursday’s college basketball parlay picks are headlined by a pair of low-major conference games with convincing trends attached to establish a unique four-leg parlay that pays above an 8-1 return.

We’re doing something different with Thursday’s college basketball parlay. We’ve identified two matchups with attackable trends for the totals. Then, using our expectations for the totals, we're anticipating the game script these contests will follow based on those initial bets.

In addition to the totals, that exercise led to the confident selection of sides for both of the games, as well. The tendencies of the teams involved in those two games lent themselves in a natural way toward a four-leg parlay with better than 8-1 odds. So we’re playing it!

Here are my top parlay picks for Thursday’s college basketball action (odds via DraftKings Sportsbook; pick confidence based on a 1-to-5-star scale).

Thursday’s College Basketball Parlay Picks

CSU Bakersfield-UC Riverside Under 125 (-115) ?????UC Riverside (-290) ?????VMI-Samford Under 157.5 (-105) ????Samford -2 (-110) ???

SEE ALSO: Top College Basketball Expert Picks for Thursday

Top College Basketball Parlay Predictions

CSU Bakersfield-UC Riverside Under 125 (-115)

When something happens eight times in a row, it generally feels like a sensible thing to anticipate moving forward. Such is the case when it comes to the Under in UC Riverside (12-9, 6-5) home games. It's 8-0 this season when the Highlanders take the court at home, as their KenPom top 100 adjusted defensive efficiency combines with their No. 282 adjusted offensive efficiency to create a glorious circumstance for offensive futility.

When these two teams met in Bakersfield on Jan. 15, UC Riverside edged out the Roadrunners 65-64 for a total of 129 points. That’s a number that obviously wouldn't qualify for this Under if repeated on Thursday, but I don’t anticipate the same level of success offensively for Bakersfield in a road environment.

Riverside has been an Unders magnet all season to the tune of 14-5, but the home-road split in those results is why we feel so good about Thursday’s scenario. Again, it’s been in home games when the Highlanders have locked down defensively to the tune of eight straight Unders.

Bakersfield has the No. 286-ranked adjusted offensive efficiency per KenPom and likely won’t get to 60 points this time. That leaves ample room for Riverside to win the game with a low-60s output en route to yet another Under.

UC Riverside ML (-290)

Assuming our Under is as good of a bet as we think it is, tacking on a UC Riverside outright victory is a sensible correlation. The Roadrunners have lost seven straight games and haven’t won a road contest since November. Their lone win as an away team this season came against a pretty good opponent, Boise State, but the final score of 46-39 indicated that result was likely more about the Broncos going through an otherworldly rough patch offensively than it was about anything Bakersfield did to thwart them.

The No. 266 team in KenPom doesn’t have much going for it in this situation against a more well-rounded, disciplined Riverside group (KenPom’s No. 186). Given our sub-60-point projection for the Roadrunners, that’s going to make it difficult to win the game. Riverside doesn’t pack much of an offensive punch, so we’re not going to include The Highlanders at -7 in the parlay. But riding with Riverside on an outright win feels like an easy way to pad the return on our investment for our college basketball parlay picks.

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VMI-Samford Under 157.5 (-105)

It’s a scary proposition to fade the literal highest total on the entire college basketball slate, but I just don’t see VMI’s trip to Samford resulting in the same kind of high-flying matchup these two teams had in their first meeting of the season. When Samford went to VMI’s place on Jan. 20, the Bulldogs got popped 99-80. Since that embarrassment, however, Samford has allowed fewer than 65 points in four of seven contests. Granted, the Bulldogs still occasionally surrender massive totals, like the 107 points they allowed to The Citadel earlier this month.

However, it’s relevant to note that those slip-ups have generally occurred on the road. In fact, there’s a trend developing related to rematch games taking place for Samford at home that suggests the Bulldogs tend to bear down defensively when they see a team for the second time in their own building.

After losing on the road 83-80 to Mercer, Samford tightened things up when Mercer made the return trip, winning the rematch 75-61. Similarly, Samford lost its first meeting with Wofford by a score of 87-64. Round 2 - a home game for the Bulldogs - went Samford’s way with a 65-60 overtime score last Wednesday.

The night-and-day difference in Samford’s defensive performance when hosting the rematch against these quality conference foes will lend itself to an unexpectedly low-scoring match on Thursday against VMI.

Samford -2 (-110)

The Bulldogs are two-point favorites at DraftKings, which is interesting considering the massive total attached to the game. Samford (16-9, 6-7) has played four games so far this season that were rematches of previous meetings against the same SoCon opponent.

Despite going 1-3 against the opponents in the first meetings, the Bulldogs have won all four rematch games. They’re riding a stretch of five wins in their last six conference games. VMI (15-11, 8-6) will represent another tough challenge for the Bulldogs, but based on Samford’s recent efforts (particularly at home), they’ll be ready for it on Thursday night for the final leg of our college basketball parlay picks.

Combined Odds: CSU Bakersfield-UC Riverside Under 125 (-115) + UC Riverside (-280) + VMI-Samford Under 157.5 (-105) + Samford -2 (-110) = +845

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College basketball parlay picks made 2/17/2022 at 12:49 p.m. ET