With just two days left in February, it’s hard to ignore the looming specter of March Madness hanging over every matchup in the final week of the regular season. That includes Monday’s slate, which features a handful of high-profile matchups between teams desperate to better their positioning ahead of the college basketball NCAA and conference tournaments.
There are only two ranked teams in action on Monday, one of whom is worth fading in our view, while the lone ACC matchup of the day sets up as an ideal spot for the pesky home underdogs.
Here’s what we’re betting on Monday, with odds courtesy of BetMGM:
(via BetMGM)
(7 p.m. ET., ESPN)
This is about as obvious of a trap spot as they come for North Carolina, which is coming off a season-defining win over then-No. 6 Virginia and has a date with the rival Blue Devils on Saturday.
In between those two mammoth games is Monday’s road test in Tallahassee, where the Tar Heels have lost their last three trips and could stumble again in this one. It’s not like UNC has proven itself away from home this year: the team is 3-7 in true road games this season and is a lousy 1-3-1 against the spread as a road favorite.
Florida State is playing with house money here, much like it was when it stunned Miami with the largest comeback in ACC history (25 points) on Saturday. That snapped a four-game losing spell for the Seminoles, though only one of those games was decided by double digits. I expect this one to be close, too.
(9 p.m. ET., ESPN)
We’ve already been burned once this year backing Oklahoma State as a home underdog against a top-10 team. Still, this feels like the right side given what we’ve seen from these two teams in this respective spot.
While the Cowboys have lost their last four games outright, they won their previous five games before that and rank 35th in T-Rank’s power rating over that nine-game sample. They’ve also been prolific at home this season, winning 11 of 15 games despite losses this month to Kansas and Kansas State by a combined 16 points.
Ironically, both of those squads beat Baylor by double digits in the Bears’ last two road games – punctuating the team’s 4-5 record in its only nine road games of the season to this point.
With leading scorer Keyonte George (16.3 PPG) ruled out with a mild ankle sprain he suffered on Saturday, I just don’t see Scott Drew’s team pulling out a win in Monday’s road finale.