Thursday night’s college hoops slate features a classic rivalry game between Pittsburgh and West Virginia. Let’s breakdown a college basketball pick between these two schools.
Pittsburgh vs. West Virginia (6:00 p.m. ET)
Both the Panthers and Mountaineers are off to 3-0 starts, but are yet to be tested by any real competition. Pittsburgh returns its starting center in Cameron Corhen, who is averaging a double double, and brings in senior point guard Damarco Minor from Oregon State. Otherwise, the Panthers are a very young team that is playing freshman around the two veterans.
I expect to see some regression from Pitt’s young core here, playing their first true road game in a rowdy atmosphere at the Coliseum in Morgantown. While WVU doesn’t return much production, it features an extremely veteran lineup. All five starters are senior transfers, most of whom were stars at their previous stops.
It’s a well-balanced lineup for the Mountaineers, with four of those starters averaging at least 9.7 points. The other is Treysen Eaglestaff, who is off to a slow start, but you might remember from his 51-point performance in the Summit League Tournament in March. If Eaglestaff can finally get going, he’ll add a new element to this Mountaineer offense.
The number on this game opened with WVU laying -3.5, but has been bet up to -6.5 as of Thursday morning (with some shops even moving to -7). That’s a bit too rich for me, but I do like the Mountaineers to take care of business here with their veteran roster and home court. I also trust them to get off to a fast start at home.
So my workaround here is going to be targeting WVU on the Double Result, which is called Halftime/Fulltime result on DraftKings Sportsbook. For those unfamiliar with the market, you can link to it with the play below. It means that the Mountaineers must lead at halftime and ultimately win the game.
College Basketball Pick: West Virginia (Double Result) Halftime/Fulltime (-130)
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