CBB Conference Tournaments: Best bets for Sunday, March 9th
Four title games and much more
There are no words to describe the NEC semi-finals.
You’ll recall we shouted the conference for its general “Guys, we’ve got a convocation starting in 45 minutes, can you wrap this game up?” aesthetic last week, and in payment for such regard the NEC hit us with a double ninja-kick to the groin area on Saturday.
It was Madness, in the worst way.
First, with Long Island moneyline and futures in hand:
Next up, with CCSU -9.5:
This is not for the faint of heart, my friends, but the losses are always more interesting in the wins. Especially Saturday, where our 13 wins couldn’t have been less sweaty.
New tournaments starting:
SouthlandBest bets
ASUN Final
(2) North Alabama vs. (1) Lipscomb (-4.5, 144.5)
“Quick” projection: Lipscomb (-7.7)
North Alabama stunned Lipscomb in Nashville, for a rare road win in conference tournament play. Both teams have continued their slow burn up the standings each season, but it’s Lipscomb that’s done the most to bounce back this season. They could have used Jacob Ognacevic last year, who was sitting out the season with a lingering bone bruise, because the Bisons were down to just two double-digit scorers, Will Pruitt and AJ McGinnis in that season-ending loss.
Back healthy this year, Ognacevic led the league in scoring (20.9 PPG), Pruitt’s still around, and the Bison now have four players who average 11.5 PPG and shoot better than 35% from downtown. The Lions’ biggest strength is rebounding, but if there aren’t many boards to get, how much can that matter?
North Alabama was catapulted into the ASUN final thanks to a rabid home-court advantage in their first two games, but their best road win came against 8-10 North Florida, having lost all four games at the other teams above .500 in league play.
Pick: Lipscomb (-4.5)
Big South Final
(3) Winthrop vs. (1) High Point (-7.5, 161)
“Quick” projection: High Point (-6.8)
Give credit where it’s due, Radford played a nice game against High Point on Saturday. The Panthers might have been a little sleepy with an early start time, coming off a blowout win on Friday, but they righted the ship to survive and advance.
It would be easy to look at that struggle, juxtaposed with Winthrop’s two easy wins this weekend, and want to take the points. However, since we won bets on the Eagles in both, we know that they were a bad matchup for Longwood in the quarters, and honestly, I had 2-seed Asheville rated in the bottom half of the Big South based on just key statistics.
This is a different task for Winthrop, and they know that having gotten blown out by 22 points in both games with High Point this season. The Eagles got away with the worst 3-point defense in the league against Longwood when they took a big lead in the first half. High Point can shoot it as well, and they do everything else well too.
Wide awake and ready to punch their ticket to the NCAA Tournament, the Panthers should play at the high end of their range, covering a number that might be too influenced by yesterday’s results.
Pick: High Point (-7.5)
Missouri Valley Final
(2) Bradley vs. (1) Drake (-3.5, 124.5)
“Quick” projection: Drake (-8.4)
If Belmont had any chill, we might sitting here with our Bradley futures ticket at +340 acting as a moneyline bet on the favorite for the MVC Championship. Instead, the Braves are the underdog, and I was ready to go full “Trent” from Swingers, and even had this bad boy ready for you when I thought we’d be also getting a whole whack of points with the Braves:
Instead, we’re only getting 3.5 points, as the market has caught up to Bradley’s chances of upsetting Drake in a way we haven’t seen since this guy got in the mix:
So, we’ll ride it out with the futures ticket, but if you missed out on that, and want to join the fray, +3.5 will have to do.
Pick: Bradley futures ticket (+340)
Summit League Final
(2) St. Thomas vs. (1) Omaha (+4, 149.5)
“Quick” projection: St. Thomas (-4.2)
Omaha shoots it slightly better than St. Thomas, but the Tommies take care of the ball better, in lieu of a subpar rebounding margin. Between that and each team winning by exactly 11 on their home court this season, it all comes out in the wash.
On a neutral court, even with the projection leaning towards St. Thomas, let’s take the points in a tournament that had some surprising results on Friday, but got back to the chalk for this final.
Pick: Omaha (+4)
Patriot League
(3) Colgate vs. (2) American (-2.5, 137.5)
“Quick” projection: American (-1.7)
Colgate won and covered their first-round game after we hypothesized that maybe, despite regular-season results that were unbecoming of a program that had become a regular in NCAA Tournament brackets, the Raiders might have another gear come tournament time. Blowing the doors off of Army doesn’t mean we were right, but if the whole idea around betting a side is determining who might be over- or underrated relative to the market, than Colgate’s the side that has room for improvement.
The Eagles won both matchups this year, and they have ultra-efficient Patriot League Player of the Year, Matt Rogers, and at home they deserve to be favored. However, there aren’t much in the way of secrets between these two teams, and this tournament’s format provides Matt Langel and his coaching staff a few days to figure out how to limit Rogers. Meanwhile, we’ll hope big man Jeff Woodward can be the type of factor he was in the first meeting (25 pts, 11 rebs) than he was in the second (6 pts, 6 rebs).
Pick: Colgate (+2.5)
Southern Conference
(5) Furman vs. (1) Chattanooga (-2.5, 146.5)
“Quick” projection: Chattanooga (-3.9)
Furman got Samford for the third time this season, so apparently beating a team three times isn’t that difficult after all.
It took a while for Chattanooga’s train to get rolling early on Saturday but they eventually covered a big number. As our pick to win the SoCon, if we’re getting value as the projection suggests, even as a favorite, we’ll double down on this prospective champion, especially since they’ll be a big favorite in the SoCon Championship with a win here.
Pick: Chattanooga (-2.5)
(7) VMI vs. (6) Wofford (-9.5, 138.5)
“Quick” projection: Wofford (-9.5)
Wofford was unfazed by East Tennessee’s length, and their season-long ability to rebound rang true. Meanwhile, VMI won a rock fight with UNC-Greensboro, when somehow the Keydets’ 3/19 was better than the Spartans’ output from deep.
Give credit to VMI for getting to a stage in the SoCon Tournament that they rarely reach, but the Terriers higher ceiling as they showed when they ran VMI out of their building recently. A third game in a row is a tough ask for a team that isn’t very deep, and Rickey Bradley will have a tough time dragging VMI to a cover.
Pick: Wofford (-9.5)
Sun Belt
(3) Troy vs. (2) James Madison (+1.5, 131.5)
“Quick” projection: Troy (-3.4)
James Madison got the bye, but Troy had little trouble with an Old Dominion team playing its fourth game in four nights, so I don’t anticipate any type of lingering energy issues for the Trojans who, like Arkansas State over South Alabama, were the better team by KenPom efficiency ratings. That’s why they’re favored here.
Part of the reason that Troy was on the short-end of the conference tiebreakers was because the schedule sent them to JMU, but a loss there couldn’t have been closer:
On a neutral site, with little more than a warmup on Saturday night, look for the Trojans to get by the Dukes, and hopefully face another lower-seeded favorite - Arkansas State in the Sun Belt title game.
Pick: Troy (-1.5)
CAA
(12) Delaware vs. (4) William & Mary (-3.5, 163)
“Quick” projection: William & Mary (-2.3)
Delaware brought a 6-game losing streak into the CAA Tournament and then got to work, jumping on Stony Brook before hanging onto win, and then taking care of Campbell - a team we had some questions about. But that was almost the pre-tournament.
In formats where the top seeds get a bye into the quarters, it’s easy to get caught up in who makes it out of the first round or two, but all that happened is a bad team beat other bad teams and now have two games of basketball on their legs as they take on the fresher team.
Pick: William & Mary (-3.5)
(10) Hampton vs. (2) UNC-Wilmington (-8.5, 138.5)
“Quick” projection: UNCW (-6.7)
We got home with Hampton even though we weren’t getting any points against seventh-seed Northeastern, because the market agreed with us that the Pirates’ recent form should be giving them more credit than a team with their full-season record would normally warrant.
Well, with the point spread higher than our projection, it seems like the market still thinks Hampton is the 10th-place team they are in the standings, not the scrappy outfit that took awhile to figure out who their starting five should be.
Pick: Hampton (+8.5)
(6) Monmouth vs. (3) Charleston (-8.5, 146.5)
“Quick” projection: Charleston (-7.5)
Charleston didn’t do anything on the high- or low-end when it comes to key areas like shooting, defending the three, rebounding, and turnover margin, and that showed when they were beaten soundly in their lone matchup with Monmouth.
The Eagles got by Hofstra despite an off night shooting from Abdi Bashir. If the 20 PPG scorer can get it going against the Cougars, as he did with 22 points earlier this season, Monmouth could pull off the upset.
Pick: Monmouth (+8.5)
Moneyline parlay
League champion picks we hope to advance, without laying the points:
Towson
Bucknell
+122 at FanDuelBig Sky
(7) Northern Arizona vs. (2) Montana (-5.5, 146.5)
“Quick” projection: Montana (-6)
In their two meetings this season, Northern Arizona was able to hang around with Montana because of an ability to dominate the glass that’s in keeping with their season-long strength - finishing second behind Idaho State in rebounding margin.
The Lumberjacks didn’t need anything special from leading-scorer Trenton McLaughlin in their win over Eastern Washington, so the 22 PPG scorer has some room to improve if a shootout is brewing with the Grizzlies.
Pick: Northern Arizona (+5.5)
West Coast Conference
(9) Pepperdine vs. (4) Santa Clara (-15.5, 154.5)
“Quick” projection: Santa Clara (-13.5)
The third-game-in-three-nights thing is always a little scary but Pepperdine seems to have shown up to Las Vegas ready to party… on the court. They went above and beyond the cover as a big underdog, beating Oregon State convincingly to set up this game.
These two haven’t met since the end of 2024, so we’ll hope that the Waves’ trio of Stefan Torodorovic, Boubacar Coulibaly, and Moe Odum have one more good game left in them. Enough to stay in touch with the Broncos, anyway.
Pick: Pepperdine (+15.5)
(6) Washington St vs. (3) San Francisco (-4.5, 148.5)
“Quick” projection: San Francisco (-5.2)
How much does losing your second-leading scorer and top playmaker matter to the point spread?
San Francisco announced this week that there’s an “eligibility issue” with Marcus Williams (15.1 PPG, 4.3 AST) and he won’t be available for the WCC Tournament.
The market has adjusted roughly a point and a half for his absence, but after a convincing win for Washington State late Saturday night, I would have been willing to take the Cougars at this number even if the Dons had Williams.
Pick: Washington St (+4.5)
Southland Conference
(8) Houston-Christian vs. (5) Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (-6.5, 137.5)
“Quick” projection: Corpus-Christi (-2.9)
Houston-Christian grew a lead to 16 and hung on at home to beat Corpus-Christi in their first meeting, and the rematch was tight throughout before the Islanders pulled away late, winning by six at home - the exact margin of free throws made.
The best thing the Huskies do is defend the 3-pointer, while the worst thing the Islanders do is shoot it, but Corpus Christi made 11 of 24 threes against HCU. They’ll need a similar rate to cover as a favorite here, but on a neutral site, let’s take the points with an advantage in a key statistical category, and the league’s leading scorer in Bryson Dawkins.
Pick: Houston-Christian (+6.5)
(7) Incarnate Word vs. (6) SE Louisiana (-3, 139.5)
“Quick” projection: SE Louisiana (-1.9)
There was an 11-1 stretch for “Southeastern” that might have convinced you they were the second-best team in the Southland, but back stretch of the season was pretty rough, as they finished with three straight losses. Hopefully the slip-up that cost them a first round bye doesn’t prevent the Lions from getting a shot at Nicholls, who they battled with twice this season.
SELA’s ability to rebound should negate Incarnate Word’s strength, which is how the Lions were able to win both matchups this season.
In general, the Lions are good at protecting the basketball, and they have not one but two of the league’s top scorers with Sam Hines and Jakevion Buckley. That should be enough to get them into the next round, where they’ll be an interesting underdog.
Pick: SE Louisiana (-3)
Futures:
Southland: Lamar (+1200, FanDuel)
McNeese, with Will Wade’s armada of upper-classmen gathered from around the country the last two seasons, will win two games and make back-to-back NCAA Tournaments under the former LSU head coach. The Cowboys are favored by such a degree that Lamar, at 12-to-1 odds, is the second choice on the odds board.
It’s not exactly “Kevin” from The Office claiming that “anytime someone offers you 10,000-to-1, you take it,” but the second choice at +1200, with a similar path, is too good to pass up.
While McNeese predictably leads the conference in key categories like 3-point shooting and rebounding margin, Lamar is second and third, while also leading the Southland in 3-point defense (McNeese was fourth).
In their first matchup, the Cowboys jumped out to an early lead, using a 16-7 turnover margin to take an early lead that the Cardinals couldn’t cut into in a 40-40 second half. In the rematch, McNeese had a rough shooting night and it came to the final possession before the Cowboys pulled it out.
McNeese’s lone conference loss came when they went 0/12 from three against Nicholls, but it shows that the Cowboys are at least capable of an off night.
Stack it up: As we venture forward at THE WINDOW, please acknowledge that you’ve found value in this content by liking (❤️) and/or restacking (🔄), to help others on Substack find THE WINDOW. “When I get it right, great! I want you to be able to see my work and understand how I got there, when I don’t.”