College Basketball Betting: Biggest Saturday Games PT 2

In Part 2 of our college basketball preview for Saturday, we take a tour of the rest of the biggest games on the board. Let’s start off in the Big East with a Top 25 showdown.

Connecticut Huskies at Creighton Bluejays

This is a Big East game in which Connecticut is in real trouble. James Bouknight is the Huskies’ leading scorer, but he will miss three weeks due to an injury. He missed this past Monday’s game against St. John’s, and his UConn teammates could not pick him up. The Huskies suffered a bad loss and have to find a way to generate enough offense without Bouknight in the lineup. Creighton has an excellent offense, so this matchup – with Bouknight absent from it – looks very bad for UConn.

Missouri Tigers at Tennessee Volunteers

This game is a clash of teams ranked in the top 20 of the Associated Press poll. Tennessee easily handled Missouri earlier in the season, so the Tigers are going to be motivated to get revenge and solve the problems they couldn’t figure out the last time they played the Vols. Tennessee is coming off a blowout loss to Florida, so the Vols have plenty of problems to fix in their own right. There is a real sense of urgency surrounding this game for both teams, not just one.

Baylor Bears at Oklahoma State Cowboys

The Baylor Bears remain unbeaten and one of the two teams in the country which are expected to play for the national title in April, the other one being the Gonzaga Bulldogs. Baylor’s defense and rebounding make the Bears very tough to play against. Baylor has a physical and active style of play which hardly anyone else in college basketball can match. Oklahoma State is currently ineligible for the NCAA Tournament, though an appeal to the NCAA might change the Cowboys’ status. If OSU is able to regain eligibility for the NCAA Tournament, beating Baylor would be a huge boost to this team’s resume.

Clemson Tigers at Florida State Seminoles

This is a game in which Clemson is coming off both a 35-point loss to Virginia over the previous weekend, and a loss to Georgia Tech earlier this week. Brad Brownell’s team had a COVID-19 pause and has been terrible ever since that pause ended. Clemson did defeat Florida State earlier in the season and will be trying to sweep the Seminoles in the two-game ACC series between the teams. Florida State is coming off a road win at Louisville and is one of the top four teams in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Kansas Jayhawks at Oklahoma Sooners

This game is a bounce-back game for Kansas, after the Jayhawks lost to Baylor on Monday. It is a bubble game for Oklahoma, which has picked up a lot of losses in Big 12 play and needs a high-quality win to improve its resume. Kansas beat Oklahoma earlier in the season with a strong defensive performance. Oklahoma needs to find a way to get its offense going against a good opponent.

Duke Blue Devils at Louisville Cardinals

Duke and Louisville both lost earlier this week in the ACC, magnifying the importance of this game. Both teams are outside the top four in the ACC, so if they are going to climb back into the top tier of the conference, they need a win here. Duke joins ACC rival North Carolina in being out of the top 25 of the Associated Press poll with Kentucky. Those three schools – Duke, UNC, and Kentucky – had not been out of the same AP poll in the same week since December of 1961.