Best College Basketball Bets Today | NCAAB Picks November 28

The Maui Invitational came and went last week, but we still have an excellent matchup between two Top 25 teams in the nation on Tuesday night, as the No. 8 Miami Hurricanes will battle the No. 12 Kentucky Wildcats at Rupp Arena. 

Further, the Purdue Boilermakers have their first game back at Mackey Arena since running through Gonzaga, Tennessee, and Marquette in three consecutive games to re-establish their position as the No. 1 team in the nation. See our best bets for these two exhilarating matchups below!

No. 8 Miami @ No. 12 Kentucky

• Date: Tuesday, November 28

• Time: 7:30 pm EST

• Moneyline: Miami N/A | Kentucky N/A

• Spread: Miami +6 (-110) | Kentucky -6 (-110)

• Total: Over 163.5 (-110) | Under 163.5 (-110)

Odds via DraftKings Sportsbook. Wager $5 and get $150 in bonus bets!

PICK: Miami +6 (-110)

The best game on Tuesday night’s slate features the No. 8 Miami Hurricanes and the No. 12 Kentucky Wildcats, two potential Final Four teams once the NCAA Tournament rolls around in March. 

The Hurricanes are 5-0 thus far, with wins over UCF, NJIT, FIU, Georgia, and Kansas State, while the Wildcats have won five of their first six games; their only loss was against then-No. 1 Kansas by five points.

For this game, Miami is getting six points on the road, despite being a higher-ranked team than Kentucky. Strangely enough, the Hurricanes are the No. 8 team in the nation, but KenPom ranks them 36th. Why is this the case?

It certainly isn’t because of Miami’s offense, which ranks 11th in adjusted offensive efficiency, fourth in effective field goal percentage, and first in 3P%; the Hurricanes would rank even higher if they were more adept at crashing the offensive glass and protecting the ball but, perhaps, those areas will improve over time.

Further, Miami might rank 100th in KenPom’s adjusted defensive efficiency, but its statistics on that end of the floor have been passable. The Hurricanes have held their past four opponents to a combined 25.9% shooting from three, which is good enough to win most games, especially if they continue to shoot the ball how they have been shooting.

Meanwhile, Kentucky has a handful of new faces, including freshmen Rob Dillingham, D.J. Wagner, Reed Sheppard, Justin Edwards, and Aaron Bradshaw; there are four five-stars and one four-star in that group! Bradshaw is still not available, but is rapidly improving and should see the floor sooner versus later.

The Wildcats also return Antonio Reeves, their second-leading scorer from last season’s team, and rebounding machine, Adou Thiero. West Virginia standout Tre Mitchell transferred to play for head coach John Calipari, too.

The talent that Kentucky has is immense; however, this Wildcats team has hardly played together and still has to log more collective game minutes to reach their full potential. They will likely win this game, but six points is a lot to lay down against a team that reached the Final Four last year and returned four key players, while also bringing in star Florida State guard Matthew Cleveland. Experience should keep the Hurricanes close, even if they don’t win.

 Texas Southern @ No. 1 Purdue

• Date: Tuesday, November 28

• Time: 8:30 pm EST

• Moneyline: Texas Southern N/A | Purdue N/A

• Spread: Texas Southern +31 (-110) | Purdue -31 (-110)

• Total: Over 139 (-110) | Under 139 (-110)

Odds via DraftKings Sportsbook.

PICK: Under 139 (-110)

Thirty-one points is a lot of points to lay, even when it’s the No. 1 team in the nation that you are backing and they are playing against a mid-major program. The Purdue Boilermakers made it through the Maui Invitational gauntlet, solidifying their status as the best team in America. 

This spread is messy because we could easily see a let-down game, especially since Purdue played three extremely intense games (against some of the best teams in the country) in just three days. On the other hand, Purdue could feel like it changed its game difficulty from “Hall of Fame” to “Rookie,” like a gamer would do on Madden, and run up the score on Texas Southern. Therefore, we are avoiding the spread in this spot and focusing purely on the point total.

Here’s the first note: Texas Southern has been horrendous when facing top-tier defenses, such as Virginia (11th in adjusted defensive efficiency) and Creighton (25th in adjusted defensive efficiency.)

As a matter of fact, Texas Southern scored merely 33 points against Virginia (roughly 26% shooting from the field and 19% from deep.) To be fair, the Cavaliers are 361st out of 363 teams in the nation in adjusted tempo, but that is still a staggering team total. Maybe it was just a “one-off?”

Unfortunately, they also posted just 50 points against the Blue Jays (roughly 30% shooting from the field and 27% from three), and Creighton is nowhere near the defensive force that Purdue is this season.

Let’s look further into Purdue’s defense against “buy game” teams. The Boilermakers held Samford to 45 points on just a 25/16/43 shooting split. Then, they contained Morehead State, allowing only 57 points on a 34/23/67 split. 

Now, they have gone through the proverbial gauntlet of Gonzaga, Tennessee, and Marquette, and are clearly clicking on all cylinders, particularly on the defensive end of the floor. 

Ultimately, Purdue has scored an average of 92.5 points in their “buy games” thus far, but this Texas Southern team ranks quite a bit higher in adjusted defensive efficiency (133rd) than Morehead State (159th) and Samford (185th).

The Tigers (268th in adjusted tempo) also play much slower than Samford (29th in adjusted tempo) and have nearly an identical pace to Morehead State. 

Texas Southern certainly won’t roll over, and it has a really solid defense relative to a lot of other mid-major squads; however, this team is going to be hard-pressed to score 50 or more points against Purdue, one of the best defenses in the nation (fifth in adjusted defensive margin). 

This will force the Boilermakers to post 90-95 points again, and that is always a big ask, even against an inferior opponent. Ultimately, that won’t be easy to do with the pace that the Tigers play at and the defense that they possess.