Thursday College Basketball Odds
(The Spread) – A couple of the nation’s top men’s college basketball teams are in action on Thursday night. Continue reading for opening odds, trends and more on these NCAA matchups.
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Robbie Hummel who? Many prognosticators had Purdue pegged as one of the top teams in the nation prior to the start of the season, but then star guard Hummel tore his ACL for a second straight season which left the Boilermakers with quite a hole. Predictably, experts soured a bit on Purdue but perhaps it is time to reassess that thinking as the Boilermakers are now 15-1 and ranked eighth in the nation. Of course they still miss the steady play of Hummel, but the sum of the parts have shown to be greater than one player.
Purdue will try to improve its season record and win its fifth straight Big Ten game without a loss Thursday night at 7:00PM EST in a tough road game at Minnesota (12-4, 1-3). Oddsmakers and online sports book SBGGlobal.com have made Purdue -3.5-point favorites in the contest.
Much of the Boilermakers’ success can be attributed to the senior combination of E’Twaun Moore (18.8 ppg, 6.0 rpg, 3.1 apg) and JaJuan Johnson (19.4 ppg, 8.3 rpg), who have been major contributors ever since they stepped on campus. Minnesota counters with Blake Hoffarber (13.4 pgg, 4.3 apg), but fellow leading scorer Trevor Mbakwe (13.4 ppg) has lost his starting job and will instead come off the bench after an arrest earlier in the week on a harassment charge.
Purdue rolled to a 75-52 home victory Sunday against Iowa, while the Golden Gophers dropped a tough 67-64 decision to second-ranked Ohio State the same day.
One other top-25 game takes place on the West Coast as Washington travels to Stanford. The Huskies are an 8-point favorite.
For a complete list of opening odds on the top-25 games in Thursday’s college basketball games, see below.
511 Purdue -3.5
512 Minnesota +3.5
551 Washington -8
552 Stanford +8
Bet On Purdue vs. Minnesota Odds
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