Monthly Archives: December 2022

College Basketball Odds: Big Movers in NCAAB Futures 2022-2023

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These college basketball futures odds are the most active, according to DraftKings.

BY MATTY D.

The college basketball season is a volatile environment and these fluctuating odds, to win the 2022-2023 Men’s National College Basketball Championship, reflect that. Here are some notable teams on the move since the start of the college basketball season in early November.

College Basketball Futures Odds where team stock is improving

If you bought stock in UCONN basketball at the start of the season, your investment is up 700% to 800% depending on which marketplace you reference. On the DraftKings Sportsbook app, the UCONN Huskies started the season as 80-1 underdogs to win a national title. Today, they are almost the betting favorite at 12-1. Houston is the only team ahead of UCONN at 7-1.

Junior forward Adama Sanogo is leading the way for the Huskies by averaging 18 points and 7 rebounds this season.

Another team that is becoming more expensive to invest in is Alabama. The Roll Tide is quietly moving into more expensive waters. Alabama started the season at 50-1. Today, they are 25-1 to win a title. That number is likely to continue trending upwards with the outstanding play of their super freshman, Brandon Miller. Bleacher Report has him listed at the top 8 overall pick is this upcoming NBA Draft.

Ironically, Alabama and UCONN played each other earlier this season. The Huskies won in convincing fashion. If each team wins its own conference, the tournament committee might be convinced to make each squad a 1 or 2 seed in the tournament.

The Virginia Cavaliers have moved up from 40-1 to 22-1.

If you like huge underdogs on the move, there are many still left to choose from. Teams like Toledo, who weren’t even listed early in the season, have made their way onto the radar and into betting marketplaces. Mid-major darling Drake has moved from 250-1 to 200-1 after its win against Mississippi State.

College Basketball Teams whose stock is dropping

Michigan has dropped from 35-1 to 75-1, according to DraftKings.

UNC was once the preseason number 1 overall ranked team. The Tar Heels stock has dropped from a 9-1 favorite to a more modest 25-1.

Dayton plummets from 80-1 to 300-1 on DraftKings (started the season at 48-1 on FanDuel in preseason) 

There are a lot of other teams that have dropped around 50 points on the “to one” scale. USC drops 150 points from 100-1 to 250-1 and Wisconsin drops 50 points 

Another team that has disappeared from many top 40 boards is Oregon. The Ducks started the season at 60-1 to win a national championship.

Other notable movements in the NCAAB futures markets

Blue bloods like Indiana, UCLA, and Duke remain consistent in the 14-1 to 30-1 range throughout the season so far. This is more or less a second tier of values after the heavy favorites.

Illinois up from 40-1 to 28-1 despite getting clobbered by Mizzou  

Did we miss any? Join the conversation by following us on Twitter.

Christmas Gift of College Hoops Saturday Teaches Us Who’s Naughty, Who’s Nice

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One Saturday in December features multiple fantastic matchups

BY MATT DE SARLE

Monday’s AP Top 25 in college basketball is going to look much different after this Saturday’s action. The latter half of the top ten is going to leap-frog much of the top 5. Teams like Purdue and UCONN got relatively little challenge against conference foes, while Virginia, Alabama, and Tennessee tested themselves against non-conference powers and lost in close matchups. Here’s a brief summary of what we observed.

UCLA and Kentucky struggle to score down the stretch

This one was tough to watch down the stretch. Collectively in the final six minutes of this game, these teams went 5-of-19 from the floor while missing a handful of free throws. It was droughts in the UCLA offense that ended its season at the hands of upstart UNC in the 2022 tournament. And we all know about how Kentucky came up short on the big stage against St. Peter’s. It was a big stage for this one, in the CBS Sports Classic in primetime and at Madison Square Garden, but the stars did not light up the score board. It was weird to see last season’s Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award winner for center of the year, Oscar Tswiebwe, only get a few touches down the stretch. The big man missed his final three shots in the last ten minutes —a missed dunk, missed layup, and missed jumper.

UNC turns contest with Ohio State into a track meet to muster overtime win

As referenced above, the Tar Heels have a flair for the dramatics. In the 2021-2022 campaign, they started their season lousy on defense yet exciting in the open court. They played up to the competition. That volatility hit the plus side of the ledger when they ran through March Madness as the runner-up to a championship. Saturday’s game with them pitted against Ohio State at MSG felt like that moment. The Tar Heels were dominated throughout the meat of the game. However, through furious pressure defense, fast break points, and a high volume of free throws and three point attempts, the Tar Heels forced overtime. UNC trailed by as many as 14 points in the game and only made a pitiful 11 percent from three point territory. Yet, a likely X factor for their full season (Pete Nance) hit a game tying last possession shot to force overtime in dramatic fashion. Nance, the son of longtime NBA star Peter Nance, has polished a well-rounded game under the radar during his time at Northwestern. Now his ability to score at all three levels was the difference for UNC to finish off this epic comeback.

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Northwestern transfer Pete Nance proves he can be an X factor for UNC

Brandon Miller officially arrives on national stage despite Alabama’s loss to Gonzaga

There are two takeaways from Alabama’s game against Gonzaga. For one, Gonzaga doesn’t need to regret scheduling so aggressively. After so many non-conference bumps in the road, Drew Timme and Bulldogs are back to their winning ways. More importantly, Brandon Miller is a star and won’t be playing college basketball next season.

Drawing comparisons to Kevin Durant during the telecast, Brandon Miller lit up the game with 36 points. That includes a simmering stretch where he essentially scored 17 points in the equivalent of the 3rd quarter. Although the freshman was a known star, Alabama had never fed him in this obnoxious of a fashion. Miller made good on his 22 attempts by making 12 of them.

See the highlights here, courtesy of CBS Sports (and pirated by Frankie Vision for YouTube)

You can only watch Brandon Miller to believe he plays in a league other than the NBA

Arizona asserts itself in another mega-matchup nightcap

Us college basketball fans were treated to not only an amazing game of action, but a perfect nightcap to finish the day. Arizona proved that it can continue rising to the moment. After beating Indiana in a nationally televised primetime game on a big stage in Las Vegas, the Wildcats headed back to the crib for this one. The 9th ranked Wildcats knocked off the 6th ranked Tennessee Volunteers. And it got testy early and late. The game started with a technical foul for chest-bumping and stare downs under the rim. After the game, there were flexing and more stare downs in the handshake line. Still, what these teams showed between the lines was impressive. Zagai Ziegler continues his super efficient play at point guard for the Vols. He scored 21 points on 73% shooting (but only dished one assist). Tennessee guards are ready for primetime. Arizona’s bigs can be a separator. And both of these squads looked polished and ready for another high level competition like this one. This didn’t look like a Final 4 matchup. It looked like the national championship. Arizona has now beat top 25 teams Creighton, San Diego State, Indiana, and Tennessee in the early going of this season.

College Basketball Preview for Saturday, December 17, 2022

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What are the suspect spreads for this week?

BY MATT DE SARLE

Like precipitation in the Northeast, the college basketball season is starting to crystalize. The branches of pathways to March Madness already starting to harden. Conference play has begun in earnest across the nation after we’ve already learned a lot about many teams during non-conference play. Below are some picks for today’s action with some reasoning based on what we’ve seen so far.

Iconic programs KU and Indiana square off in evenly-matched gem

The national champion KU Jayhawks will host the upstart Indiana Hoosiers at Allen Fieldhouse today. IU has no business being a 5.5 point underdog. These teams are very evenly matched. In fact, Indiana has the advantage in the low post with Trayce Jackson-Davis (son of former NBA player Dale Davis). This could be one of the final marquee non-conference matchups of the calendar year 2022. The outcome of a game like this could dictate who gets a 2 seed in the tournament versus a 3 or 4 seed.

Don’t sleep on Wake Forest basketball

Despite blowing a huge lead in its last contest against LSU, Wake Forest is still a dangerous team. Florida transfer point guard Tyree Appleby is off to a great season and is listed as questionable for the game. Still, 10.5 points is too large a cushion to give Steve Forbes and this improved Demon Deacons program. A win at Wisconsin showed you what the ceiling for this squad can look like.

Alabama offers Gonzaga another crack at cracking the top 10

College basketball star Drew Timme‘s senior campaign isn’t getting off to the start Gonzaga had hoped for. It’s been a rocky stretch as the Zags have challenged themselves to a gauntlet of a non-conference schedule (as per usual). Today he plays against top 10 Alabama and a freshman phenom, Brandon Miller. Miller is looking for like a top 5 NBA Draft pick with every new NCAA game he puts on film. By college basketball standards, which has no standards, Alabama should be as safe a bet at even money at home.

World Cup Bracket Sweet 16 Results Provide Rare Opportunity to Fill Out Bracket

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We have a Sweet 16 in December! College basketball fans could be practicing their bracket-filling skills during this rare opportunity. The FIFA 2022 World Cup is being played in Qatar in the winter this unprecedented year. First grade teachers nationwide would be proud of the hand-writing skills being put to the test at office printers nationwide.

If soccer isn’t your thing, it isn’t ours either. Click here to read our college hoops blog and December update.

World Cup Bracket Filled Out for Sweet Sixteen

*Bracket template by the New York Post

Shake-up atop College Basketball’s Top 25 Sets Table for December

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Major movements mark uncertainty at the top of college basketball

BY MATT DE SARLE

It happens every Thanksgiving. Great games go on, but between the post meal nap and the NFL football, it’s hard to keep up. Even the most hardcore college basketball fans did a double-take at the post-holiday top 25 to decipher exactly what happened. Here’s a recap of the major movers and shakers over feast week. This sets the table for not only a turbulent December of non-conference play, but some important resume bullets for when the committee sifts through what happened in November.

Big East Behaves Like a “Power 5” Conference in Basketball

Speaking of double-takes, you might have looked side-eyed at the preseason top 25 when you saw Creighton crack the top 10.

Read what I wrote about Creighton on November 7th here.

Not only have the Bluejays stuck the landing in the first month of play, they’ve been joined in the top 10 by fellow Big East power UCONN. Yes, the Huskies have returned to the Big East after a hiatus in the American Conference. Danny Hurley has this club clicking with great ball movement and some immoveable objects down low.

Arizona Wildcats can’t miss opportunity to dominate the Pac-12

The Arizona Wildcats were steam-rolling through to the top 5 with a ranking of number 4 overall in the nation. That’s when they took a head-scratching loss to Utah to open up conference. Arizona has lost Ben Mathurin to the NBA Lottery where he is currently playing for the Indiana Pacers. But the Wildcats have added another dynamic combo guard in Texas transfer Courtney Ramey. Ramey won’t bring the prime Russell Westbrook-like attack to the court, but you could do a lot worse in replacing an exiting NBA player. Azuolas Tubeless, a 6-11 forward who can run the floor with ease, needs to take the next step to stardom for this team to crack the Final Four. Another big man in Gonzaga transfer in 7 footer Oumar Ballo is also adding a lot more offensive production than he did while in Spokane.

With UCLA slipping out of the top 10, USC’s former front court playing for the Cleveland Cavaliers, and the likes of Arizona State and Stanford sputtering, this is Arizona’s conference to seize.

Purdue Boilermaker bully-ball their way into the top 10

Purdue went from unranked in the AP Preseason Top 25 to surging into the top 5. Purdue dominated Duke in the Phil Knight Legacy Championship game. Make what you will of this result, but Duke is not yet close to a finished product. Purdue’s center, 7 foot 2 Zach Edey jumps off the page and off the TV screen. However, past results have proven that Purdue, regardless of how many trees it has inside, is hard-pressed to crack the Final Four. A close game against Florida State (a struggling 1-7 record at the time although they always have size and length) in the ACC Big 10 Challenge took the shine off their early season domination.

Purdue catapults into the top 10 by dominating Duke