NCAA Basketball Predictions, Odds & Best Bets (2/28)

It’s the last day of February. It’s Friday, the weekend is here. Tomorrow holds the first day of the best sports month of the year, and we get 100+ College Hoops games to celebrate. However, we still have a decent amount of matchups tonight, so let’s dive in to the Friday slate and find our NCAA Basketball best bets.

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NCAA Basketball Best Bets – February 28th, 2025

Rider vs Merrimack Predictions

Budd Clark and Merrimack host Rider tonight

Best Bets: Rider/Merrimack Under 130.5 (-115) BetOnline

Death. Taxes. Merrimack Unders. Especially at home. If you’ve been following me all season, nothing I say will be new. But if we have any folks joining us for the first time, let me introduce you to the Merrimack Warriors.

Personally, we have had tons of success betting them this year. We are 11-1 betting on games involving the Warriors and 8-0 betting their unders this year. It helps when this team is an under machine. Merrimack is 17-11 to the under this year, 12-5 in conference play, and are 11-0 at home to the under. It’s actually incredible.

Now, there are several reasons why this happens. For starters, Merrimack plays super slow, dropping to 333rd in possessions per game at home. Offensively, they aren’t all that great, but defensively they can hang with anyone. The Warriors are 73rd overall and 24th in eFG% Defense, while also ranking Top 20 in the turnover battle on both sides of the ball. They don’t get to the free throw line, but they don’t send their opponents there either.

Ultimately, Merrimack is MUCH better on defense than offense, but they take up the entire shot clock whenever they have the rock. These two teams already played once, and the total barely ticked over 129, as Merrimack won 66-64 on the road. Rider is a team that is already north of 300 in pace, so expect turtle speed from both offenses tonight. The Broncs offense is 305th overall and 334th in eFG%, but their defense gets slightly better on the road. One of their strengths is keeping teams off the free throw line, so points from the charity stripe should be rare.

We’ve bet Merrimack unders plenty this year, and they’ve always come through. Are we due for regression? Sure. But I’m not fixing something that isn’t broken quite yet.

UCLA vs #20 Purdue Best Bets

Trey Kaufman-Renn leads the Boilermakers in scoring and rebounds this season

Best Bets: Purdue -5 (-115) BetOnline

BetOnline is giving us push potential at 5 while the rest of the market is hangin -5.5, and in what might be a defensive game, I’ll take any half points I can get.

Purdue has been terrible recently, losing four straight. However, three of those matchups were on the road, and the home loss was against #16 Wisconsin. I’ll forgive the Boilermakers (especially considering we faded them against the Badgers), and back them at home tonight hosting the UCLA Bruins. Mick Cronin’s team hasn’t been out east since Valentine’s Day and based off sheer advanced analytic rankings, it will be their toughest road matchup all year.

They already lost to then #13 Maryland (Bart Torvik), and now face #12 Purdue on the road. Fun fact, UCLA is 4-4 on the road this year, but just 1-4 against old Big Ten teams. They beat Oregon, Washington and USC all on the road, teams that are all on the West Coast. But they lost to Nebraska, Maryland, Rutgers, Illinois, and then beat Indiana. To me, that says the Bruins don’t travel out of their time zone very well, as they also lost to North Carolina at MSG this season.

Back to the Stats

The Bruins offense falls off on the road, and tonight their defense will get tested. I expect Purdue to win the free throw battle, as UCLA ranks 310th at getting to the line on the road. The Bruins give up way too many threes, and don’t shoot enough themselves based on percentages alone. They like playing slow, so if the Boilermakers speed things up, it may be hard to catch them. Purdue lost last time on their home court and are looking to end a five game skid.

I see them successfully shutting down UCLA and being able to put the ball in the hoop in West Lafayette. Laying more than 6 would give me pause in this matchup, however I think Purdue can win this by a few possessions.

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