It’s Friday, which means BetOnline has another full slate of boosted odds up on the board. Friday brings another jam-packed college basketball schedule as we get ready for another weekend with plenty of college football, European soccer, UFC, and NFL betting action.
How should you bet Friday’s trio of odds boosters? Let’s dive right in.
NCAAB: Michigan State (-25.5) and Virginia (-19.5) BOTH to Cover (+300)
Tom Izzo won at Cameron Indoor for the first time in his career earlier this week when Michigan State came away with an impressive 75-69 win at Duke. The Spartans are now 3-0 on the year, and they’ll surely rise in next week’s rankings assuming they don’t lose in upset fashion between now and then.
While everyone is looking forward to the Spartans’ game against Virginia on December 9, Michigan State will face Detroit Mercy and Western Michigan in the meantime. Tonight’s game at home against Mercy has Izzo’s crew favored by a whopping 25.5 points. This will be the first game of the season for a Detroit Mercy team that went just 8-23 last season, including a 6-12 mark in Horizon conference play.
No. 8 Michigan State upsets No. 6 Duke on the road, 75-69
First ever win at Cameron Indoor Stadium 👀 pic.twitter.com/5i3kDPm8B9
— Bleacher Report CBB (@br_CBB) December 2, 2020
Michigan State should have no problem taking care of business tonight.
Virginia bounced back from their shocking loss to San Francisco by trouncing St. Francis by 25 points earlier this week. Virginia fell all the way to No. 15 in the top-25 after that defeat at the hands of the Dons, but one would imagine Tony Bennett’s side will be in the running for one of the top seeds once March Madness rolls around.
The Cavs will look to make it back-to-back wins tonight at home against Kent State. The Golden Flashes beat Point Park 90-41 in a laughably lopsided matchup in their lone outing of the season to this point back on Wednesday. Needless to say, it would be quite a surprise if Kent State were to come close to scoring 90 tonight against a far more defensively sound Virginia outfit.
NCAAB: Auburn (-10) and Oregon (-3) BOTH to Cover (+325)
Auburn is just 1-2 so far this season. The Tigers got past St. Joseph’s with a five-point win in their opener before dropping back-to-back games to Gonzaga and UCF. There isn’t much shame in losing to the top-ranked Zags, even if the 23-point margin wasn’t particularly close. The Tigers’ loss to UCF was a bit more surprising, as Auburn fell by eight points in a game that wasn’t particularly close throughout.
Auburn is a sizable 10-point home favorite tonight over South Alabama.
The Jaguars are off to a 3-1 start, but their schedule certainly hasn’t been a tough one thus far. USF has beaten Florida Atlantic, Mobile, and Emmanuel alongside a four-point loss to Jacksonville State.
Oregon is 0-1 following an eight-point loss to Missouri in their first game of the new campaign. The Ducks will be back in action tonight against a Seton Hall team that has started 1-2. The Pirates have taken losses to Louisville and Rhode Island alongside a 22-point triumph over Iona.
NFL: Jets to Finish 0-16 (+145)
The third and final odds booster of the day is a futures bet featuring the lowly New York Jets. The Jets, of course, are now just six games from making history. New York’s 20-3 defeat against the Dolphins last Sunday dropped the Jets to 0-11. Frankly, it’s tough to look at the team’s rest-of-season schedule to find a game they could possibly win.
2019 Raiders:
Enter Week 12 at 6-4, lose to Jets (34-3)
2020 Raiders:
Enter Week 12 at 6-4, lose to Falcons (43-6) pic.twitter.com/lr8hQnd5FC
— CBS Sports (@CBSSports) November 29, 2020
The Jets will host the Raiders this week. While Las Vegas was shellacked 43-6 by the Falcons last week, the Raiders are still a game over .500 on the year and very much in the hunt for an AFC playoff spot. The Raiders are nine-point road favorites in this one. Anything can happen, but a Jets win this week would still be quite the massive surprise.
After this week, the Jets will finish the year with games against the Seahawks, Rams, Browns, and Patriots. Seattle, Los Angeles, and Cleveland are likely playoff teams. New England hasn’t been particularly impressive at all this season, but the Pats did still beat the Jets by a field goal in their previous meeting. The upcoming game will also take place in Foxborough, which likely won’t help the Jets’ chances.
What’s The Best Bet?
These narrow college basketball spreads make me nervous, especially this early in the season. It’s a bit too early to draw any firm conclusions about any team, so Oregon being a three-point favorite against Seton Hall gives me plenty of pause. I’d pass on the Auburn/Oregon two-way bet tonight at +325.
The other bets look solid.
Both Michigan State and Virginia should be able to overwhelm their opponents with relative ease tonight. Even with those massive spreads, I think both teams are pretty good bets to cover comfortably. I don’t mind taking a stab on the Spartans and Cavaliers both to cover at the +300 odds.
The safest bet, of course, is the Jets finishing the season winless. The +145 odds here don’t give you massive upside, but it’s really difficult to envision this team backing into a win at this point. Do the Jets even want to win? The final five games of their season feature five potential playoff-bound opponents. Plenty of strange things have happened in 2020, but the Jets winning a single game from this point on would be among the strangest.
Boosted Odds Prop Bet:
Jets to Finish 0-16 (+145)
Taylor Smith
Taylor Smith has been a staff writer with GamblingSites.org since early 2017. Taylor is primarily a sports writer, though he will occasionally dabble in other things like politics and entertainment betting. His primary specialties are writing about the NBA, Major League Baseball, NFL and domestic and international soccer. Fringe sports like golf and horse racing aren’t exactly his cup of tea, bu …
