NIT Tournament Best Bets: Lock in This Expert's College Basketball Picks for Wednesday

NIT Tournament Best Bets: Lock in This Expert's College Basketball Picks for Wednesday

The best part about the NIT every year is that it adds some action to the college basketball postseason while hosting the teams that just barely missed the NCAA tournament. We got some great games last night between the Hofstra upset and close Liberty game, and we now have a few more games on the slate tonight to make money on. I have two of my favorites below. Let's get into it.

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NIT Tournament Best Bets

Pick One (2 Units): UC Irvine +7.5 @( -110) Bet $100 to collet $190. DraftKings has the best odds, click here

Oregon is another team that just barely missed an at-large bid. They were the fifth-highest team in the NET rankings to miss an at-large, with Rutgers being the head-scratcher left out of the big dance (although they didn't prove people wrong with a loss last night). Oregon had a pretty successful 2022-2023 campaign, ending the season 19-14 and 12-8 in Pac-12 play. Unfortunately, Oregon lost one too many games in their tough schedule at the beginning of the season to make it, but they are still a well-rounded team that is full of seniors and big players. All five starting players are seniors, and they rank fourth in average height in the NCAA as a team. However, Oregon will be without two of their leading scorers tonight, Jermaine Couisnard (12.8 PPG) and Will Richardson (12.2 PPG). Leading scorer N'Faly Dante (13.4 PPG) is also banged up and is questionable for this game. That leaves a gaping hole in the offense for Oregon, and while they do have guys to fill the spots, they are younger and not as good of true scorers.

That said, even a healthy Oregon team should not be sleeping on UC Irvine because the fully healthy team lost to the Anteaters this season. In Oregon's second game of the season, the Anteaters came into Eugene and won by 13 points against Oregon as +16 point underdogs. They are now just +7.5 (they opened +10, but the line moved with the injury news for the Ducks).

The Anteaters have played in close games all season, and it seems to be their forte. Of their 11 losses, only two came by double digits. That includes a three-point road loss at San Diego State. Four of UC Irvine's starters are upper-classmen, and their top three players have been at UC Irvine for their entire college careers, so the chemistry is there as well. I think too much weight is being put into the fact that Oregon is a power five team playing at home in the NIT. In reality, the teams in the NIT are very close in talent, as we saw yesterday with Hofstra. Many of these teams fly under the radar, and I like to take advantage of the inflated lines. Especially without two of their top three scorers, I think this is a closer game for Oregon. I'm taking the points.

Pick Two: North Texas/Alcorn State Under 124.5 @ (-110) Bet $100 to collet $190. DraftKings has the best odds, click here

If you have never watched a North Texas game, well...oh boy. If you thought baseball was a slow-paced game, you haven't seen the Mean Green play basketball. These guys take methodical play to a whole new level. They play out the entire shot clock for fun and shut down teams in transition. They rank dead last in the nation in tempo and use an average of 22 seconds per offensive possession. They also rank 30th in defensive efficiency in the nation. They force opponents late into the shot clock and force tough looks, giving up nothing easy. On the other side is an inconsistent offense in Alcorn State.

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This will be a quad-one road game for Alcorn State. In their other three quad-one games this season, the Braves scored 54, 40, and 46 points. This is not a team that will light up the scoreboard, and they also play at a slow pace, ranking 279th in tempo on offense and 174th overall. They shoot horribly, ranking 346th in effective field goal percentage. They do get a lot of offensive rebounds, but North Texas is a good rebounding team that limits second-chance points. They also rank 358th in assists per field goal, meaning they don't spread the ball well and take tough looks, which will not bode well against this North Texas team.

If the spread were lower than -17, I would play North Texas, but with how slow this game will be, North Texas may not even cover. Either way, I don't see Alcorn State breaking 50 points in this game, and with the slowest pace in the country, North Texas will keep the clock churning. Most models have this one touching 130, but those models have not watched North Texas play. I swear their coach makes them run laps if they don't shoot it with less than five seconds on the shot clock every possession. The only way this game goes over is if both teams shoot over 50%, and that's something neither team does comfortably. Take the under, and don't watch this game unless you love defense.