NCAA Basketball: Picks for Day 47 of the 2023-24 season
By Bryan Mauro
The schedule had a lot of NCAA Basketball games yesterday and there were some very interesting results. The power conference schools all took care of business and can head into the Christmas break happy with a win. UTEP won the Sun Bowl tournament and Georgia Tech, TCU, Hawaii and Nevada are all onto the Semi-Finals of the Diamond Head Classic. Incarnate Word upset Illinois-Chicago. Central Connecticut upset Fordham. New Hampshire beat Rhode Island. The result that we all seem to care about was Kentucky blasted Louisville and we are all officially on Kenny Payne watch. Will he coach another game with the Cardinals? We will all soon find out.
Yesterday I went 56-13 in my picks. That gives me a 46 day total of 1,373-479 overall. Today is another big schedule of games. The games drastically shrink tomorrow and Sunday is the last day of games until Wednesday night. The Semi Finals of the Diamond Head classic are today and there are some ranked teams in action. It is another day of wall to wall basketball starting early in the morning and ending late at night in Hawaii. It is truly a basketball fan's dream today. Picks for day 47 December 22,2023 are below.
Bryant over Drexel
UMass Lowell over Boston University
James Madison over Morgan State
Vermont over Miami Ohio
Cornell over Robert Morris
Milwaukee over Chattanooga
Tulane over George Mason
Merrimack over Bucknell
Brown over Siena
South Florida over Albany
Texas over Texas A&M Corpus Christi
Drake over UAB
Georgia over North Florida
Towson over Nicholls
Northridge over Montana State
Florida over Grambling
Nevada over TCU
Clemson over Queens
SMU over Murray State
South Carolina over Elon
Marquette over Georgetown
Baylor over Mississippi Valley State
Cincinnati over Stetson
Southern Illinois over Southern Indiana
High Point over Canisius
Florida State over Winthrop
VCU over Maryland Eastern Shore
St Bonaventure over Binghamton
Temple over Old Dominion
Kansas over Yale
Wisconsin over Chicago State
Tulsa over New Mexico State
San Francisco over Fresno State
Rice over Louisiana
Austin Peay over Ohio
Auburn over Alabama State
Marist over Notre Dame
Texas A&M over Houston Christian
Southern Utah over Middle Tennessee
Illinois over Missouri
BYU over Bellarmine
Utah State over ETSU
UCLA over Maryland
Colorado State over LMU
Hawaii over Georgia Tech
UMass over Portland
There is not much quality on the schedule today. The Big East does have a conference game that should see Marquette get back on the winning side of things. Outside of that game, the Diamond Head Classic games are the best games on the schedule today. What a weird year that UCLA and Maryland would not be one of the best games of the day. Illinois and Missouri is a huge border rivalry and that game is very unpredictable. Missouri could pull off the upset there.
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One game to watch for an upset is Marist and Notre Dame. I don’t trust the Irish and I don’t think they are very good. Marist is playing very well right now and off to its best start in a long time. Will the Irish come out motivated after getting housed by the Citadel? We will see. The best mid-major game of the day is the first game of the day with Bryant and Drexel. Drexel loves to play defense and Bryant loves to run. The Bulldogs beat Florida Atlantic this year so that will be an interesting one.