{"id":114043,"date":"2026-02-14T15:52:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T15:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/114043\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T15:52:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T15:52:07","slug":"mens-college-basketball-picks-odds-saturday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/114043\/","title":{"rendered":"Men&#8217;s college basketball picks, odds Saturday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\tNew York Post may be compensated and\/or receive an affiliate commission if you click or buy through our links. Featured pricing is subject to change.<\/p>\n<p>A dirty little secret for oddsmakers is that they genuinely hate injuries because they feel vulnerable when they post <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/article\/best-college-basketball-betting-sites\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">betting lines<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It is much easier to make accurate odds with both teams at full strength because there is sufficient data. <\/p>\n<p>However, no one knows the true impact of a star player because the sample size is small and the scenario is heavily nuanced.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>On Saturday, North Carolina will play its first game since losing star forward <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/02\/12\/sports\/north-carolinas-caleb-wilson-suffers-broken-hand\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Caleb Wilson to a fractured hand<\/a>. The freshman leads the team in scoring and rebounding.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>UNC hosts Pittsburgh as an 11.5-point favorite with a total of 144.5 points at <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/betting\/draftkings-promo-code\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">DraftKings<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Teams typically respond with supreme effort in the first game without a key player and then the absence is felt more significantly.<\/p>\n<p>I expect the Tar Heels to play with intensity, especially coming off a loss.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"38475879\" width=\"590\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/crop-38475873_925b88.jpg\" alt=\"North Carolina Tar Heels forward Caleb Wilson (8) looks on against the Miami Hurricanes during the first half at Watsco Center.\" class=\"wp-image-38475879\"  \/>North Carolina Tar Heels forward Caleb Wilson (8) looks on against the Miami Hurricanes during the first half at Watsco Center.  Sam Navarro-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<p>The Panthers are one of the ACC\u2019s worst teams and have only covered the point spread in three of their past 11 games. Their offense ranks third worst in the conference in efficiency.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Wilson is a big weapon on both ends of the court but the home crowd should provide a strong boost. The question is whether the Heels can execute properly.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Betting on College Basketball? <\/p>\n<p>My gut tells me that UNC will cover the hefty spread, but I am more focused on the total.<\/p>\n<p>I do not think the Heels will be able to generate the same type of prolific offense, but we will see the defense respond against a weak Panthers offense.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I have a 96-82-2 record against the spread in The Post\u2019s sports section.<\/p>\n<p>My next play is Under 144.5 points (-110, DraftKings)<\/p>\n<p>Why Trust New York Post Betting<\/p>\n<p>Doug Kezirian is a New York Post contributor who has over two decades of experience in the betting space, including spending 11 years at ESPN as a host, columnist and betting analyst. He\u2019s also the rare personality who has documented success \u2013 14th place in 2023 Circa Million and Las Vegas SuperContest ($37K), two top-10 finishes in 2022 William Hill College Football Challenge ($58K) and also grabbed headlines with a $297K win on the 2021 NFL Draft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York Post may be compensated and\/or receive an affiliate commission if you click or buy through our&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":114044,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[11848,10150,52842,20097,10340,73,75,74,726,6518,11850],"class_list":{"0":"post-114043","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh","8":"tag-betting","9":"tag-college-basketball","10":"tag-college-basketball-betting","11":"tag-north-carolina-tar-heels","12":"tag-pitt-panthers","13":"tag-pittsburgh","14":"tag-pittsburgh-headlines","15":"tag-pittsburgh-news","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-sports-betting","18":"tag-sports-picks"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}