{"id":614216,"date":"2026-02-20T18:59:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T18:59:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/614216\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T18:59:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T18:59:20","slug":"2026-college-basketball-odds-back-dominant-wolverines-to-beat-blue-devils","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/614216\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 College Basketball Odds: Back Dominant Wolverines to Beat Blue Devils"},"content":{"rendered":"

The game of the year in college basketball<\/a> takes place Saturday night in Washington, D.C.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It will be the top-ranked Michigan Wolverines<\/a> (-2.5, 148.5) taking on the No. 3 Duke Blue Devils<\/a>, and this game could be an early preview of a Final Four matchup that we end up seeing in early spring.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Michigan is 25-1 on the year and putting together one of the more dominant regular seasons in recent memory. It just beat No. 7 Purdue on the road by double digits, a game Michigan led by as many as 20 points.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Duke is no pushover, however, as the Blue Devils just demolished Syracuse by 37 points, improving to 24-2 on the season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This page may contain affiliate links to legal sports betting partners. If you sign up or place a wager, FOX Sports may be compensated. Read more about Sports Betting on FOX Sports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re of the belief that Duke wins this game, betting the Blue Devils to win the national title at +700 odds (a $10 bet pays $80 total) is probably a good idea because those odds will certainly adjust down if they do win on Saturday night.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even if they lose, it\u2019s a forgivable loss considering the opponent and the +700 odds will likely stay within that range \u2014 barring a huge blowout or a\u00a0big injury for the Blue Devils.<\/p>\n

Since this is a neutral-court game, the under 148.5 might be a good way to attack this one as well. Scoring is often tougher for teams when they play in an unfamiliar arena (as is the case here) due to a shooting backdrop that the players are not accustomed to.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to keep it simple and go with Michigan to win the game and cover the -2.5.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The dominant Wolverines have not been beaten away from home this season. They have excelled in non-conference play, beating both Gonzaga and San Diego State by 40 points each, Villanova by 28 and Auburn by 30.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Those are all teams that have the caliber to make the NCAA Tournament. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Duke is certainly a major step up in class from those opponents, but Michigan\u2019s size and depth, I think, is enough to nudge the Wolverines into the win column in what should be an electric atmosphere on Saturday evening.<\/p>\n

PICK: Michigan (-2.5) to win by more than 2.5 points<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The game of the year in college basketball takes place Saturday night in Washington, D.C.\u00a0 It will be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614217,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,212,217,691,712,1043,231,772,1544],"class_list":{"0":"post-614216","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-betting","10":"tag-college-basketball","11":"tag-duke-blue-devils","12":"tag-gambling","13":"tag-michigan-wolverines","14":"tag-ncaa","15":"tag-ncaa-basketball","16":"tag-ncaab"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614216\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}