NCAA Basketball: 4 best bets for opening night games of 2021-22 season

Tennessee Tech @ Memphis -26.5

The new-look Memphis Tigers will draw much fanfare on opening night from both a performance and betting perspective. The signings of Jalen Duren and Emoni Bates, the #1 and #2 overall recruits in the 2021 class, provide exceptional depth and talent to this year’s roster. The additions bring back similarities to the 2019-20 team featuring James Wiseman and a promising recruiting class of backcourt talent. Specifically, capable shooting and length accompany Bates and Duren to an already deceptively good defensive unit this season.

While these two pieces are the cornerstones of the program, head coach Penny Hardaway also signed Miami (FL) transfer and former 5-star recruit in his own right Earl Timberlake Jr. Talent is abounding on this roster and has been created with dynamic versatility in mind. The Tigers were a top-20 program for both steals and blocks last season, as well as 11th in rebounding. There aren’t going to be many easy chances to beat Memphis this season, especially when they also boast the 2nd best perimeter defense in the nation and 5th in overall field goal %.

It’s extremely bad news for their opening night opponent Tennessee Tech who have fared terribly against ranked opponents in their program’s history: 1-41 straight up. Since 2018 though, results have been particularly grim with the Golden Eagles going 0-4 with an average margin of defeat of ~54 points per game. Tennessee Tech has lost the rebounding margin in these games roughly 2:1 and has turned the ball over quite precipitously.

To make matters worse, these four games simply didn’t see teams go crazy from the perimeter and overwhelm the Golden Eagles. Rather their 324th ranked defense provided little resistance inside to keep teams from finding comfort shooting the ball.

Take Memphis -26.5