You may notice a lot of team totals in my articles. There’s a good reason for that. A lot of times when we handicap a game, we expect a certain result to occur. How many times have you found yourself saying “Team X should carry this total, so I like the over in the matchup”?
More often than not, the better wager in that case is on the team total over, because then you don’t need the other team at all. I wish more books put up team totals in college basketball, but if you have one of the books that do, then you should take advantage of it more.
All odds are per DraftKings Sportsbook.
Denver at BYU
9 p.m. ET
BYU -27.5
This is the perfect illustration of what I was talking about above. Denver is not a bad offense, and they have put up some decent numbers on the road scoring 80 at Colorado State, 87 at UC San Diego and 75 at South Alabama. The problem is that BYU’s defense is pretty spectacular, checking in as the best at defending the three in the nation. On the other side, the Pioneers defense is 359th in forcing turnovers and 306th in effective FG%. BYU is coming off a loss to their rival and are now back home where the offense has been tremendous. They’ve scored 110, 74, 105, 93 and 96 in front of their fans. The pace will be conducive to plenty of scoring so give me the home team’s team total over.
The Pick
BYU over 91.5 points (-120)