Our 5 Best Bets for Friday Night’s Games, Including Arizona State vs. TCU

The first round of the NCAA tournament isn’t over quite yet.

After diving into the early games on Friday, we have picks for the night/late-night slate.

Our staff provides the top NCAA tournament odds, picks and five best bets for Friday night’s games, including Arizona State vs. TCU and more.

Friday Night’s 5 NCAA Tournament Best Bets

The team logos in the table below represent each of the matchups that our college basketball staff is targeting from Friday night’s slate of games. Click the team logos for one the matchups below to navigate to a specific bet discussed in this article.

Fairleigh Dickinson vs. Purdue

By D.J. James

The Purdue Boilermakers have had some close games down the stretch of Big Ten regular season play and in the conference tournament, but they are a phenomenal offense.

With Zach Edey, it’s hard for most teams to match up with them, let alone one of the worst defenses in the country in the Fairleigh Dickinson Knights.

FDU ranks 359th in Adjusted Defensive Efficiency and 352nd in eFG%, per KenPom. It’s allowing teams to shoot 56.1% from 2-point range and 36.2% from 3.

Purdue shoots 32.6% from deep, but it hits 54.1% from inside. The kicker is that Purdue ranks third in offensive rebounding percentage and 14th in defensive rebounding percentage. FDU ranks 94th and 200th, respectively.

This could be a bloodbath on the offensive glass in favor of Edey and the Boilermakers.

Since the Knights give up a 3-point attempt rate of 39.7%, Purdue should be able to knock down some 3s, too.

Purdue’s defense is not a slouch this season, either. It ranks 23rd in Adjusted Defensive Efficiency, limiting opponents to 31.4% from deep and 47.3% from inside the arc. FDU does own an eFG% of 51.7%, so it has a little offensive firepower, but Purdue will do enough to get stops.

Lastly, FDU does force turnovers (21.4% rate), but the Boilermakers are a different tier of team than the Knights have faced consistently. In addition, Purdue turns it over around 17% of the time.

Either way, Purdue should win in a landslide, and perhaps the biggest margin for a one-seed this year.

Drake vs. Miami

By Brett Pund

I went with a 12-seed in my earlier best bet entry, and I’m going back to that matchup again in the Midwest Region by backing Drake against Miami.

The handicap is also similar to that first game, as well. I want to bet on the team that has been playing the better basketball over the last month, which has been the Bulldogs.

If you also look at the weakest unit of the court, it will be a Hurricanes defense that is outside the top 130 in multiple categories, according to Bart Torvik, including AdjD (134th), EFG% (220th) and defending 2-pointers (255th).

Miami will have Norchad Omier in the lineup, but the big man — who averages 13.6…