College basketball odds: Duke, West Virginia face touch matchups
The last weekend of the college basketball regular season tips off on Friday with a pair of key matchups in the Ivy League and Big 12 conferences, as Selection Sunday is now just a little more than a week away.
In the latter, the 24th-ranked Iowa State Cyclones (20-9, 12-5 Big 12) and 10th-ranked West Virginia Mountaineers (23-7, 11-6) are both locks to make the Big Dance. The Mountaineers are listed as 7.5-point home favorites to close their campaign with a win at sportsbooks monitored by OddsShark.com.
West Virginia and Iowa State are simply playing for seeding in the NCAA Tournament here and in the Big 12 Tournament that gets underway next week. The Mountaineers have won the past three meetings with the Cyclones both straight up and against the spread, according to the OddsShark College Basketball Database, including an 85-72 road victory as two-point road chalk earlier this season on January 31.
The Princeton Tigers (19-6, 12-0 Ivy) and Harvard Crimson (18-7, 10-2) have already clinched the top two seeds in their four-team conference tourney, which will take place this year for the first time. They will meet for the second time this year as well, with Princeton winning 57-56 at Harvard on February 4 but failing to cover as a 2.5-point road favorite.
The Crimson had won five of the previous six meetings with a 2-4 ATS mark, but they're 7.5-point road underdogs at the sportsbooks for Friday.
On Saturday, the ACC will take center stage with two matchups featuring four of the top five teams in the conference. First, the 19th-ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish (23-7, 12-5 ACC) will visit the eighth-ranked Louisville Cardinals (23-7, 11-6) and attempt to earn a series sweep.
The Fighting Irish won the first meeting 77-70 as 1.5-point home chalk on January 4, and they have gone 3-0 SU and ATS in the past three meetings.
Then the fifth-ranked North Carolina Tar Heels (25-6, 13-4) will look to earn a split of their intrastate rivalry with the 17th-ranked Duke Blue Devils (23-7, 11-6) on Saturday night.
The Blue Devils took the first meeting 86-78 and covered the spread as 3.5-point home favorites on the college basketball betting lines on February 9, winning for the fifth time in six games between the teams. Duke has also beaten the number in three of the previous four matchups.
The Big Ten will close out the weekend with two big games on Sunday including four of the top five teams like the ACC. The 16th-ranked Purdue Boilermakers (24-6, 13-4 Big Ten) visit the Northwestern Wildcats (21-9, 10-7) earlier in the day as they go for their fourth straight win in the series (2-1 ATS in previous three meetings).
Then the 22nd-ranked Wisconsin Badgers (22-8, 11-6) later host the Minnesota Golden Gophers (23-7, 11-6) and will try for their seventh consecutive series victory (3-3 ATS in previous six).
