Best College Basketball Bets Today: NCAAB Picks for November 8

The top two teams in the country, No. 1 Kansas and No. 2 Alabama, have games on Friday night.

The Jayhawks host the ninth-ranked North Carolina Tar Heels at Allen Fieldhouse, while the Crimson Tide will play Arkansas State in hopes of improving to 2-0 on the season.

What can we expect from this enthralling matchup between UNC and Kansas, as well as from an Alabama team that just dropped 110 points in their last game?

I’ll break down three fantastic games from the slate and provide my best college basketball picks for those matchups below!

No. 9 North Carolina @ No. 1 Kansas 

• Date: Friday, November 8

• Time: 7:00 pm EST

• Moneyline: North Carolina +310 | Kansas -400

• Spread: North Carolina +8.5 (-110) | Kansas -8.5 (-110)

• Total: Over 158.5 (-110) | Under 158.5 (-110)

All odds are available via FanDuel Sportsbook but are subject to change. Place your bets at FanDuel and claim $150 in bonus bets + 3 months of NBA League Pass.

PICK: Kansas -8.5 (-110) at FanDuel

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Wow. A near-9-point spread in a game between two top-10 teams?

Is that more of an indication of how cohesive Kansas is this season, or an indictment on North Carolina’s shortcomings?

It’s a bit too early to tell, but I’d imagine it is a combination of the two.

The Tar Heels barely squeaked by Elon on their home floor, shooting a lower percentage from both the field and the 3-point line. 

They also barely won the rebounding battle despite pulling down 18 offensive rebounds. Frankly, they just did not look like a top-10 team in the country, even with their elite perimeter talent.

One of the only redeemable aspects of the Tar Heels’ first game of the season was their ball protection, as they turned the ball over just six times as opposed to Elon’s 16 turnovers.

A few less offensive rebounds and a few more turnovers and the Tar Heels would have been on legitimate upset alert.

For Kansas, its first game could not have been more opposite. The Jayhawks controlled the game from the tip, eliminating any hope for Howard to keep the score close.

In fact, Kansas outscored the Bison 46-19 in the first half; it was a crushing blowout from the beginning. Then, the Jayhawks called in the reserves for nearly the entire second half, and they still won by 30 points.

While a team’s first game of the season is hardly an indication of whether or not they will be dominant throughout the year, it is blatantly obvious that Kansas is more prepared and cohesive. 

And of course they are. After all, they didn’t have any players enter the transfer portal and only lost Johnny Furphy and Kevin McCullar while bringing in a Brinks truckload of talent.

The main issue here for North Carolina is size. 

The Tar Heels will have plenty of success in the 2024-25 campaign purely because of their perimeter talent, including Seth Trimble, Elliot Cadeau, and RJ Davis.

However, they will have some issues against teams with dominant big men, as their biggest players are Jae’Lyn Withers (6-foot-9) and Jalen Washington (6-foot-10). 

Withers is much more natural at the power forward position, while Washington has barely logged meaningful minutes for the Tar Heels in his career (eight minutes per game in 2023-24).

Kansas is one of the few nightmare matchups for UNC. And sadly, the Tar Heels will have to endure this mismatch at Allen Fieldhouse, one of the toughest places for opponents to play in the country.

Arkansas State @ No. 2 Alabama

• Date: Friday, November 8

• Time: 8:00 pm EST

• Moneyline: Arkansas State +2000 | Alabama -7000

• Spread: Arkansas State +21.5 (-110) | Alabama -21.5 (-110)

• Total: Over 140.5 (-110) | Under 140.5 (-110)

All odds are available via FanDuel Sportsbook but are subject to change.

PICK: Alabama -21.5 (-110) at FanDuel

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If Alabama’s first game against UNC Asheville (209th in KenPom’s adjusted efficiency margin) was any indication of what we will see this season, then this 21.5-point line might be a bit too tight.

The Crimson Tide hung 110 points on Asheville, hitting 63.3% of their field goal attempts and 44.4% of their 3s. They also outrebounded the Bulldogs by 26, an alarming differential, regardless of the opponent.

What is even crazier is that Mark Sears only logged 24 minutes, while Grant Nelson, Latrell Wrightsell Jr, Jarin Stevenson, Mo Dioubate, and Cliff Omoruyi all played 20 or fewer minutes. 

And the Crimson Tide still won by 56 points.

Now, Alabama will host Arkansas State, one of the Sun Belt’s best teams this season. 

Can the Red Wolves keep this game close, or will they fall victim to the high-octane, hyper-efficient Alabama offense?

I think Arkansas State will keep this relatively close in the first half but Alabama will ultimately pull away late in the second half and cover this spread.

This Crimson Tide team is electric on the offensive end (second in adjusted offensive efficiency, per KenPom) and an absolute blur in transition (eighth in adjusted tempo). 

The addition of Omoruyi, a mobile, rim-protecting center who can crash the glass, was massive. 

That move allowed Alabama to move 6-foot-11 stretch big man Nelson to his natural position at power forward. Despite being only one game into the year, that acquisition has already proven to be one of the best of the off-season.

The Crimson Tide had two fatal flaws last season: defensive rebounding (253rd in DREB%) and interior defense (197th in opponent 2P%).

Thus far, the Crimson Tide seem to be a more dominant force on the glass and certainly have the personnel to protect the paint at a much higher level.

Sure, those things could change once the competition becomes stronger, but the physicality and aggression that they showed was promising.

I’ll roll with the Tide against the spread for a second consecutive game.

Northern Kentucky @ No. 14 Purdue

• Date: Friday, November 8

• Time: 7:00 pm EST

• Moneyline: Northern Kentucky +1600 | Purdue -4500

• Spread: Northern Kentucky +19.5 (-102) | Purdue -19.5 (-120)

• Total: Over 147.5 (-114) | Under 147.5 (-106)

All odds are available via FanDuel Sportsbook but are subject to change.

PICK: Northern Kentucky +19.5 (-102) at FanDuel

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College basketball fans finally got a glimpse of Purdue’s replacement for Zach Edey, the two-time National Player of the Year. 

Daniel Jacobsen, a 7-foot-4 freshman center, posted 13 points and pulled down seven rebounds in his first collegiate action on Monday night.

However, let’s pump the brakes with the Edey comparisons. 

Jacobsen has some mobility and his size makes him an instant impact player against smaller teams, but in Edey’s final two seasons, he was one of the all-time great college players. There’s a major difference between the two players right now.

And Jacobsen does not have the frame yet to be as consistently dominant in the post; the Boilermakers are not going to be able to work inside-out nearly as much (or as effectively) as they did last season.

Still, the Boilers have an impressive squad, including the likely Big Ten Player of the Year, point guard Braden Smith, who nearly put together a triple-double (12 points, 15 assists, and 8 rebounds) in the first game of his junior campaign. 

Fletcher Loyer is another terrific backcourt player due to his ability to shoot from deep (44.4% from 3-point land in 2023-24), while Myles Colvin and Trey Kaufman-Renn are expected to take big strides this season.

Yet, I’m not sold on the Boilers being a fringe top-10 team in the country.

It took a late surge to put away a very mediocre Texas A&M Corpus Christi team. In fact, Purdue had merely a three-point lead on the Islanders with just over six minutes remaining in the second half.

Purdue will now face a Northern Kentucky team that should not be slept on. The Norse lost by 12 points in their first action of the season to Florida State despite committing 22 turnovers and only hitting 25% of their 3-point attempts.

The Seminoles are not nearly the force they have been at times in the past, sitting just 80th in KenPom’s adjusted efficiency margin, but playing on the road against an ACC team is no joke for a mid-major program.

Since Edey no longer dominates the paint for the Boilermakers, they have to rely much more on playmaking from their guards instead of hitting catch-and-shoot 3s off of inside-out and swing looks.

And the Norse happen to be a fantastic 3-point defense team; they held Florida State to a putrid 4-for-22 shooting night from behind the arc.

Last season, Northern Kentucky ranked 43rd in opponent 3P%, holding opponents to just 31.5% shooting from deep. Entering the 2024-25 campaign, KenPom actually slotted the Norse as the 100th-best defensive team, per his adjusted defensive efficiency metric.

That ranking is probably even a little low, which has much more to do with their competition throughout the season than their actual ability on that end of the floor.

If the Norse can clean up the turnovers (Purdue only forced Corpus Christi into nine turnovers in its last game) and knock down a few more 3s, they could keep this game pretty close.