College Basketball Betting Picks For Monday Include Mispriced Lines In Contests Between Bad Teams

After back-to-back rough nights last week, I decided to take a short break to rethink my college basketball betting picks strategy. Sometimes, as a handicapper, its important to step back and evaluate the process.

College Basketball Betting Picks Recap, January 18 (2-5)

Michigan State (-11) over Minnesota ❌

Vermont (-6.5) over Binghamton ✅

Memphis (-10.5) over South Florida ❌

Marshall (+1.5) over Old Dominion ❌

UT Martin (+9.5) over Morehead State ❌

North Dakota (+2) over Oral Roberts ✅

St. Thomas (-5.5) over South Dakota ❌

Rough slate, but we learned a lot. Ready to go as we head towards March Madness. The goal is to be at our best when we reach the tournament. And, we will be.

2024 record: 27-32-5 (46%)

College Basketball Betting Picks, January 22

Advanced data courtesy Ken Pom and Team Rankings.

Hofstra (-3.5) over Stony Brook

Hofstra has burned me a few times, so this one is tough. However, they should not struggle to beat Stony Brook. If they do, they enter my dreaded "no-fly" list (looking at you, Youngstown State). Their net rating is over six points better and this is barely a road game (the campuses are fewer than 50 miles from one another).

They've burned me in the past, but Hofstra is back on my college basketball betting card for Monday night. (Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images)

Hofstra covered in a recent road game against St. John's in a similar distance away, as they did against Iona, as well. Stony Brook has been the better team against the spread this year and recently, so this number seems a little deflated.

Northwestern State (+6) over Southeastern Louisiana

This is a battle between two teams that both struggle to defend. But, NW State boasts the stronger offense and can take advantage of SELA's inability to play defense. Also, SELA struggles to cover at home, going 0-3 ATS this season. Clearly, their homecourt "advantage" isn't much, so there's no reason for this line to be so high.

In a battle of bad teams, I'll take the six points in a game that should be relatively close. I can't see either squad getting hot enough offensively or string enough great defensive possessions together to separate itself.

Bethune-Cookman (+1.5) over Arkansas Pine-Bluff

Bethune-Cookman rates better than Pine-Bluff in nearly every predictive metric, yet they're underdogs in this matchup. Pine-Bluff allows an almost unfathomable 59% opponent effective field goal percentage, which ranks dead last out of 362 schools.

Plus, Bethune hits the offensive glass at an impressive rate and Pine-Bluff gets very few second-chance opportunities. Cookman also plays an aggressive style of defense that should lead to easy shot opportunities -- something APB just doesn't do well contending.

That's it for me, good luck everyone with your college basketball betting picks! Here's to getting back on track this week...