NCAA Basketball Best Bets for March 1: Heavy Favorites Enjoy Great Spots Tonight
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Rainman M.
- March 1, 2025
Top NCAAB Pick: Wake Forest -8.5 (-110) at Bovada (visit our Bovada Review)
Top-rated sportsbooks have released their betting odds for today’s college basketball action. Four games, in particular, interest me as worth investing in: NC State vs. Georgia Tech, Notre Dame vs. Wake Forest, Santa Clara vs. Pacific and Texas A&M vs. Florida.
North Carolina State Wolfpack vs. Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
Saturday, March 01, 2025 – 03:00 PM ET at McCamish Pavilion
A Holistic Approach
In the last NC State game that I covered, I wrote about how this team’s offense matches up well against defenses that allow a high rate of assists.
Georgia Tech does allow a high rate of assists, but let’s note two things:
- Not all defenses that allow a lot of assists are the same because they allow a lot of assists for different reasons.
- Other factors come into play.
NC State on the Road
Regarding the other factors that come into play, one big one is location.
Not only have the Wolfpack failed to win a road game all year, but they have also failed to win a neutral-site game. They cannot win away from home. When they faced Wake Forest, for example, which is a team that allows an extremely high rate of assists — even higher than Georgia Tech — the Wolfpack won by 12 at home but lost by 18 on the road.
NC State’s defense is predicated significantly on ball pressure, but the effectiveness of its ball pressure relies on its defenders getting energized by the home-court atmosphere. Thus, for example, the Wolfpack in their last road game faced a Syracuse team that commits turnovers at the ACC’s second-highest rate and is thus vulnerable to a pressure-heavy defense that forces a lot of turnovers. But hosting the Wolfpack, Syracuse turned the ball over at a comparatively low rate.
The Orange, along with every team that NC State has faced on the road since the start of January, have all scored at least 74 points against NC State. I expect Georgia Tech to score at least 74 points today.
Georgia Tech’s Swarming Defense
The Yellow Jackets allow a lot of assists because they like to converge on ball-handlers in the paint. You can tune in to their last game at Pittsburgh, with 17:20 left in the first half, to see what I mean.
They make it exceedingly hard for a ball-handler to drive on them and compel the ball-handler to kick the ball back out to a teammate behind the arc. Hence, Georgia Tech loses to teams that are strong behind the arc, with examples including Boston College and Virginia.
However, NC State does not like to shoot threes and is bad at making them. The Wolfpack rank 295th nationally in three-pointers made. I can’t imagine NC State scoring more than the 67 points that Pitt did, at home. Pitt scored as many points because it has a knack for getting to the free-throw line that NC State lacks.
Takeaway
NC State will continue to struggle on the road, where it will fail to penetrate Georgia Tech’s interior defense, to take advantage of its opportunities behind the arc and apply a meaningful level of ball pressure.
NCAAB Pick: Georgia Tech -4 (-101) at Bookmaker (visit our Bookmaker Review)
Notre Dame Fighting Irish vs. Wake Forest Demon Deacons
Saturday, March 01, 2025 – 05:15 PM ET at Joel Coliseum
Wake Forest’s Perimeter Defense
Wake Forest’s defense matches up well against Notre Dame’s offense because the former does the best job among ACC teams at limiting opposing three-point efficiency.
The Demon Deacons faced a Duke team, for example, that attempts a very high rate of threes and is one of the nation’s best at making them. The Demon Deacons held Duke to a 28.1-percent conversion rate from behind the arc and to a 63-point output.
Three-point shooting is pretty much all Notre Dame’s offense can rely on because it is inefficient inside the arc. Sometimes — at Miami and Florida State, to give two examples — Notre Dame shoots decently well from behind the arc but still fails to attain a respectable point total because it struggles so much to score inside.
Markus Burton, for example, who is by far the team’s top shot-taker, is a small guard who struggles to finish inside, converting 47.8 percent of his shots inside the arc. Notre Dame’s only ACC road wins came against Virginia, where the Irish made twelve threes, and against Boston College, where Burton had a huge performance.
Burton is known for his speed, though — for relying on his quickness to get to the basket — and his counterpart on Wake Forest is Ty-Laur Johnson who is likewise known for his speed. Johnson will be able to handle Burton’s physical tools and is also just a good perimeter defender in general, as evident in his excellent steal rate.
Wake Forest In Attack Mode
On offense, Wake Forest primarily wants to attack the basket. The Demon Deacons are well-stocked with slashers, most notably Cameron Hildreth and Hunter Sallis.
Led by them, Wake Forest has the ACC’s highest point distribution from inside the arc. This positions the Demon Deacons perfectly against a Notre Dame defense that is extremely thin in the interior. The Fighting Irish lack any kind of shot-blocking talent inside. Hence, they gave up 77 points, for example, to a Syracuse team that relies very heavily on a single slasher.
Takeaway
Wake Forest is one of the ACC’s very best teams at scoring inside the arc because it boasts multiple solid slashers who are tough to contain as they drive to the basket. The Demon Deacons will score 80+ against a Notre Dame defense that is bereft of shot-blocking talent.
On offense, the Fighting Irish want to shoot threes but will face the team that is the best in the ACC at limiting three-point efficiency. Burton won’t bail the Irish out because Wake Forest has the speedy and skilled personnel to limit his scoring.
NCAAB Pick: Wake Forest -8.5 (-110) at Bovada
Santa Clara Broncos vs. Pacific Tigers
Saturday, March 01, 2025 – 08:00 PM ET at Spanos Center
Blowout Upcoming
Santa Clara owns Pacific, and tonight’s game presents a good spot in which one must expect the Broncos to continue thriving against Pacific.
Last year, they beat Pacific by 19 on the road after leading by 22 with 34 seconds left. They also beat the Tigers by 26 at home. This year, they beat Pacific by 34 at home.
Santa Clara’s defense is reliably strong against weak competition when perimeter defender Elijah Mahi and seven-foot shot-blocker Christoph Tilly are healthy. Mahi is known for his length (at 6-7) and his physicality. He is tough to drive on with his disruptiveness as an on-ball defender.
He might struggle against offenses that rely on movement, but Pacific’s offense is so bad in part because guys commonly stay stationary. The Tigers are one of the worst three-point shooting teams because they lack guys who can make the open shots that they do get, but they’ll also struggle inside against Santa Clara’s length.
On offense, the Broncos are filled with sharpshooters who complement the inside efficiency of Tilly. They regularly explode against low-ranking conference defenses even on the road, most recently scoring 109 at Washington State and 97 at Portland.
Takeaway
The Broncos love to explode after a bad loss, as they did in their last blowout win over Pacific when they enjoyed the step-down in competition. They will be at their best after they were blown out in their last game.
NCAAB Pick: Santa Clara -13 (-110) at Bookmaker
Texas A&M Aggies vs. Florida Gators
Saturday, March 01, 2025 – 08:30 PM ET at Exactech Arena
Key Trend
Florida is in a great spot tonight because it is coming off a loss. The Gators are 3-0 ATS after losing their last game. In those three covers, they beat:
- Tennessee by 30.
- Texas by 24.
- Vanderbilt by 11 despite not having Walter Clayton, their most important contributor.
Why a Blowout
Florida regularly exceeds 80 points because the Gators feature multiple efficient shooters, such as Clayton, Alijah Martin and Will Richard. These guys will exploit a Texas A&M defense that, under Buzz Williams, really values guarding the paint and, packing the paint, correspondingly allows an insanely high rate of threes.
Texas A&M’s offense is extremely inefficient. It just wants to put up shots — primarily in the paint — and to hope that it can attempt enough shots to score enough points by dominating on the glass. Hence, the Aggies will muster a terrible point total when they face a team like Mississippi State that can compete with them on the glass. Florida is one of the SEC’s four or five best rebounding teams, though, so it can replicate the 54-point total to which the Bulldogs lately held the Aggies.
Texas A&M’s 70-54 loss to Mississippi State is one game in its ongoing three-game losing streak that will continue against Florida’s combination of limiting Texas A&M’s offense to one bad shot per possession and lighting it up from three.
Takeaway
Florida’s pace of play is an additional factor, which will bother an Aggies team that likes to play slow and accordingly lost, for example, by 12 at an up-tempo Kentucky team even though they were actually efficient inside the arc.
Florida is going to run the Aggies out of its gym tonight.
NCAAB Pick: Florida -9.5 (-105) at Bovada
*The line and/or odds on picks in this article might have moved since the content was commissioned. For updated line movements, visit BMR’s free betting odds product.
