Each day, one of our experts will offer up a best bet (or two or three) that mobile sportsbooks are offering. It might be a traditional spread bet, a player prop or one of the various odds boosts that books offer.
Here are our best bets for Saturday, Nov. 12:
TOP PLAY
The play: NCAA football, Baylor -2½ vs. Kansas State
The odds/bet: -110 ($11 to win $10)
The book: Caesars Sportsbook
Time/TV: 7 p.m. ET (FS1)
Our take: Don’t look now, but the Baylor Bears are rolling again a year after winning the Sugar Bowl and making Dave Aranda look like one of the nation’s best coaching hires of 2021.
Baylor got off to an uneven 3-3 start with back-to-back losses to Oklahoma State and West Virginia early in Big 12 play, but they’ve rebounded in a big way, scoring at least 35 points in three straight games and winning on the road against Texas Tech and Oklahoma the past two weeks.
The key has been a rushing attack that ranks 18th nationally at 210.3 yards per game but has gone into overdrive during this winning streak for a 261.7 per-game average.
Trying to stop that attack will be Kansas State, which is pedestrian in run defense and just gave up 269 yards to Bijan Robinson and Texas last week. K-State has had a nice season, but the trends are against the Wildcats here, too: Unranked teams favored at home against ranked teams are 10-1 straight up and 7-4 against the spread this year.
STAYING IN THE BIG 12
The play: NCAA football, Oklahoma -7½ over West Virginia
The odds/bet: -110 ($11 to win $10)
The book: DraftKings
Time/TV: Noon ET (FS1)
Our take: Going to steal a couple of paragraphs from my College Football Week 11 Betting Guide for this one:
We’re going to pick on West Virginia to help Oklahoma cure some ails. The Mountaineers have multiple offensive line starters out with injury, and it showed last week in the 31-14 loss at Iowa State in which WVU only gained 200 yards.
Oklahoma quarterback Dillon Gabriel threw three interceptions against Baylor last week, and those mistakes are obviously a concern, but there’s nothing wrong with the explosiveness of this OU attack, which averaged better than 6.3 yards per play, actually better than its season average. If that trend continues, West Virginia will have trouble keeping pace.
HOW WE’VE FARED
NCAA football: Cincinnati -4½ over East Carolina (LOST $33)
NBA: Suns/Warriors money-line parlay (LOST $10)
Friday’s profit/loss: -$43 (0-2)
Total for the week: +$22.10 (5-4)
Total for November: +$149.80 (13-8)
Total for 2022: +$166.10 (292-314)
NOTE: If a line or odds are minus, it considers the juice one must lay to place the bet. Ex: Team A is -160 on the money line, one would have to bet $160 to win $100 (or $16 to win $10). OR Team B is a 5-point favorite at -110, one would have to bet $110 to win $100 (or $11 to win $10.)
Conversely, on positive lines, if Team C is +140 on the money line, a $100 would bring in $140 (or $10 to win $14).
