The college basketball season is at the stage of its evolution where schools have final exams. This means the weeknight games during the week aren’t great, but there are some high-level games on Saturday. Most of the top college basketball games to bet on will be on Saturday this week.
LSU Tigers at Houston Cougars
Wednesday, December 12
The Tigers and Cougars are both likely to be in the hunt for NCAA Tournament berths this season. LSU let a big win to slip away weeks ago against Florida State, but the Tigers are still considered a team with a lot of talent. Houston still hasn’t lost this season, and the Cougars are coming off a win at Oklahoma State, but they haven’t played a list of extremely difficult opponents. LSU will be a tougher test than Houston has faced in previous weeks. This game figures to teach college basketball analysts a lot about where these two teams stand right now.
Villanova Wildcats at Kansas Jayhawks
Saturday, December 15
This is a rematch of last season’s Final Four national semifinal in San Antonio where Villanova buried Kansas with a dazzling display of three-point shooting. This season, Villanova is missing a number of the players who were part of that game, and of the team which won a national championship. The results are showing this season, with Villanova losing at home to Furman and also dropping a blowout decision to a Michigan team which is playing the way Villanova played in that 2018 NCAA Tournament. The Wildcats aren’t terrible, but they aren’t setting the high standard previous teams did. Kansas hasn’t been very authoritative, either, barely winning games against teams such as Stanford and New Mexico State, teams it should be blowing out. These teams will probably still be very high seeds in the NCAA Tournament, but they aren’t playing like high seeds right now, and that’s what makes this game such a mystery.
Tennessee Volunteers at Memphis Tigers
Saturday, December 15
The Volunteers just defeated unbeaten Gonzaga when the Zags were ranked as the No. 1 team in the country. That victory puts Tennessee in the thick of the national title conversation. The Vols look very much like a contender. What was also notable about that win over Gonzaga is that the Vols did it without Lamonte Turner, one of their better players. Admiral Schofield scored 30 points to beat Gonzaga on Sunday. He and others are picking up the slack in Turner’s absence.
Tennessee now plays a Memphis team which is getting used to first-year coach Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway. The matchup might seem lopsided, but you know that Memphis will treat this game like a Super Bowl and will be supremely motivated to pull off an upset.
Gonzaga Bulldogs at North Carolina Tar Heels
Saturday, December 15
The Zags just got stung by Tennessee. Now they will try to win in North Carolina against a Tar Heel team which has had a rough non-conference season. North Carolina lost to Texas. It lost to Michigan. It has not played good defense and has looked very ordinary. Beating Gonzaga would immediately change the way the Tar Heels feel about their season, but North Carolina isn’t playing well enough to beat Gonzaga at the moment. UNC needs a better defensive effort against the Zags.
Cincinnati Bearcats at Mississippi State Bulldogs
Saturday, December 15
The Mississippi State Bulldogs are trying to get back to the NCAA Tournament after several years of failing to make March Madness. They just beat Clemson and sorely need to add a win over Cincinnati to bolster their resume. Cincinnati is the early favorite in the American Athletic Conference. The Bearcats and Houston are the two main contenders in the AAC. The main clash will be Mississippi State’s backcourt against Cincinnati’s active and suffocating perimeter defense.
