Opening Night Best Bets

Saint Louis vs Santa Clara (-1.5) 

In one of the early games on the opening day slate, the new look Saint Louis Billikens will take on the Santa Clara Broncos at the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The Billikens are now led by one of last year’s breakout coaches in Josh Schertz (Indiana State), and he was able to bring with him national sensation center, Robbie Avila, along with his point guard from last season in Isaiah Swope. As for Santa Clara, coach Herb Sendek is coming off a season where he had a 10-6 conference record in the WCC along with a semifinal appearance in the conference tournament, but this group will be looking to accomplish more this season. The Broncos roster is essentially the same, as they are returning a good amount of production from last year, and coach Sendek was also able to bring back guard Carlos Stewart, who was in the program for 2 years before departing for LSU last season. 

There are some advantages for the Broncos in this matchup over the Billikens, and it starts with roster continuity. Arguably their 3 most important players are returning in Adama Bal, Johnny O’neil, and Christoph Tilly, so this should make for almost 0 bumps in the road when trying to establish an identity this season. While Stewart left the program for a year, he is very familiar with Sendek’s style and he should be handling a lot of the on ball duties. It is a bit of a different story for Saint Louis. While coach Schertz has 2 very important players that are familiar with his system, the rest of the roster comes into the season as a bit of an unknown, especially on the defensive end.

As for the actual matchup, the Broncos may be able to exploit this Billiken defense that might take some time to hit its stride. With Robbie Avila playing the center position, there is really only 1 way to defend the pick and roll due to his mobility limitations and that is with deep drop coverage. This may become a problem, as Santa Clara has capable pull up shooters in Stewart and Bal to take advantage of this coverage. One player prop to keep an eye on is Adama Bal to go over his point total (if available), as he should be the most frequent pick and roll ball handler in this matchup. The mobile big men that Santa Clara can deploy on the versatile Avila will also help this Broncos defensive unit, as they are comfortable defending in space. The Broncos defense also does a solid job contesting 3 point shots (31.7% 3pt allowed, 51st nationally), and this is key as coach Schertz is known to let his shooters fire away at will. 

Santa Clara was a team I was looking to buy early in the season, and Saint Louis was a team I was looking to fade, so this is mostly a play on the number at -1.5, but there are advantages for the Broncos and we expect them to walk away with the win in Sioux Falls. The Billikens look a bit overhyped coming into the year, and we will try to take advantage of it on opening night. 

Best Bet: Santa Clara -1.5 (bet to -2 or -130 ML)

UNC-Asheville at Alabama (-24.5)

Coming off a final four appearance last year, Nate Oats and the Alabama Crimson Tide look to come out of the gates hot against a Big South Conference contender in the UNC-Asheville Bulldogs. Oats was able to retain Wooden award contender, Mark Sears, along with other weapons in Latrell Wrightsell, Grant Nelson, and Jarin Stevenson. He did lose some key players to the transfer portal, but arguably received better players in return by adding sharpshooter Chris Youngblood (USF) and a dominant rim presence in Cliff Omoruyi (Rutgers). As for UNC-Asheville, they lost some significant pieces, most notably 2-time Big South player of the year, Drew Pember, so expect this group to take a little time to find their new identity.

Alabama’s fast pace and high powered offense is the biggest factor when identifying who to side with on the spread. When backing a sizable favorite, you want to look for a team that runs up the possession count along with the upside to get hot for long stretches. Alabama does both of those things, as they were 19th nationally in adjusted pace and also 19th nationally in both 3 point% and 3 point attempt rate last season (Torvik). This style will make it very difficult for a defense like UNC-Asheville to stop Alabama, as they struggled to keep teams out of transition a year ago (84th percentile in transition opportunities allowed). The addition of Omoruyi for Alabama is crucial here as well. Asheville was 299th in the nation in defensive rebounding percentage a year ago, leading to another path for easy offense. The Bulldogs have solid guard play to possibly keep up with the Crimson Tide, but they may feel the loss of Pember early in the season as well. 

For what it’s worth, coach Oats is 17-7-1 (71%) in his career as a favorite of 10 points or more in non conference games, and he deploys the style of play that verifies this trend. It will be incredibly difficult for Asheville to keep up with Mark Sears and company on opening night in Tuscaloosa, and we expect a rout to be in store.

Best Bet: Alabama -24.5 (bet to -25.5)

Wright State at Kentucky (-19)

The Mark Pope era at Kentucky starts with a battle against one of the best teams in the Horizon league year after year in the Wright State Raiders. Pope has a brand new roster filled with some of the top transfers in this year's edition of the portal, so we should expect this program to be just fine even with the departure of John Calipari. Wright State is also undergoing some change on the sidelines, as Clint Sargent will take over for Scott Nagy, who departed for Southern Illinois. Sargent was an assistant under Nagy for 9 years before being handed the keys to the program, so we should expect a similar style of play from the Raiders this season. 

This game is a similar handicap to the aforementioned UNC-Asheville vs Alabama game, as the Wildcats look to have a high powered offense that likes to bomb away from 3, and they like to play at a fast pace. Guys like Koby Brea (49.8% from 3), Jaxson Robinson (35.4%), and Andrew Carr (37.1%) are known as some of the best shooters in the country at their respective positions. The experience this roster has along with the shooting ability at almost every position is a big reason to believe there won’t be much of a learning curve for this group, and they have an extremely deep bench. This is important for a game that has a sizable spread, as there shouldn’t be much of a drop off if the starters don’t receive their regular workload. Kerr Kriisa, Otega Oweh, and Ansley Almonor will come off the bench and have proven they are well above average college basketball players, but they may actually have to play “garbage” minutes due to this roster being so deep. There are also 3 4-star Freshmen on this roster that will get time on the floor in these situations, so don’t expect a drop off when Pope takes his starters out. 

As for Wright State, they may be in a bit of a rebuilding phase. The Raiders saw their top 2 scorers from a year ago graduate, and they didn’t seem to grab high end scoring replacements. Guys like Alex Huibregtse and Brandon Noel will need to take on higher usage roles, but it looks like this team could be down on the offensive end compared to past years. Coach Sargent will likely keep this team playing at a fast pace, which may be a recipe for disaster against a Kentucky team that will love to run with them. Wright State’s defense was ranked near the bottom of the country last season and didn’t do much work in the portal, so expect more of the same from this unit.

As stated earlier, the handicap on this game is very similar to when we backed Alabama. Mark Pope has also been good in this ATS spot throughout his career and especially last season with BYU, where the Cougars went 9-1 ATS as a double digit favorite in against non conference opponents. Back Kentucky to cover as they should keep the pressure on Wright State for all 40 minutes on Monday night.

Best Bet: Kentucky -19, play to -22.5