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College Basketball Totals: 10 Pace Shifts to Exploit
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- College Basketball Totals: 10 Pace Shifts to Exploit
2022 USA TODAY Sports. Pictured: Chris Capko (Ball State)
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The college basketball season is here, and we're thrilled to bring you a robust offering of offseason betting content.
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This article is going to focus on pace and style changes — due to coaching changes or limitations in personnel — that we can expect from some teams this season.
I love betting college basketball totals, and we're able to get a beat on some teams early in the season, which can create some value. I'll be covering several teams that I expect to have drastically different offensive operating tempos this season, so lets dive into it.
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Pace Shift: Faster
Weber State generally allowed its opponents to control the pace against it last year, as the Wildcats played games at 59 possessions, 85 possessions and every tempo-level in between.
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New head coach Kaleb Canales comes in from the NBA, and his hiring was heavily influenced by Weber State general manager Damian Lillard. Canales is going to bring an up-tempo style with NBA-type spacing as Weber State will seek to run out in transition early and often.
Weber State welcomes in Chamberlain Burgess into the fold, and he'll be a star in the Big Sky. Brock Felder and Augustine Ekwe provide excellent post play and a versatile set of guards will make this offense fun to watch.
With Utah, Tarleton State, Cal State Northridge, Cal State Fullerton and Southern Utah on the schedule (all willing to run up-tempo), I think there will be value in Weber State totals early in the season.
Air Force had one of the worst seasons in recent history from any Mountain West team, as the Falcons not only lost every conference game (0-20), but the team was largely non-competitive nightly against conference foes.
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A need for a change in leadership was evident, and Air Force will turn to Joe Crispin, who's going to completely change the approach the Flyboys play with.
Air Force is going to migrate to a fast paced, up-tempo scheme, where 13-15 players are going to play and the 3-point shots are going to be put up in bunches.
Kam Sanders, Ethan Greenberg and Lucas Hobin are going to freely shoot the ball, and all three are going to have the green light from anywhere past half court.
The defense will likely not be overly efficient, and this team will give up a ton of points on the other end. But the brand of basketball will be much easier to watch, and the points should pile up in Air Force games.
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The over should be looked at for contests against Wright State, Idaho State and Loyola Chicago.
Jeremy Ballard changed up his offensive philosophy several times during his eight-year tenure at FIU, and every time he tinkered with it the offense got worse. The team was originally built to run and shoot triples, but less and less of that occurred, and Ballard was shown the door after eight seasons.
In comes Joey Cantens from Daytona State of the JUCO ranks, where his teams would regularly score 100 points per game.
Solid guard play should allow FIU to facilitate the scheme, but a lack of interior toughness will make it tough for it on the defensive end. This team brings in four players who played under Cantens at the JUCO level last season, so they should adopt the system quickly.
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With games against West Florida, UAB, Southern Utah and Arkansas State early in the non-conference, I'm going to seek to bet FIU overs.
Chris Capko takes over at Ball State. He'll look to bring his pace-and-space system from SMU, where he was an assistant coach under Andy Enfield.
This roster is filled with shooters who are going to have the green light, including Javion Guy-King, Sean Blake and K'Jei Parker. Trey Lewis nailed 52 shots from deep last season while playing for Western Michigan, and he'll be in the mix coming off the bench.
Ball State isn't going to have a lot of interior toughness on the defensive end, but the possession counts should be way up for a team that played games in the 58-62 range last season in MAC play.
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I expect 70-72 possessions on average this year, and when paired with the right dance partner, these Ball State games could get wild.
With Georgia Southern, Indiana State, SMU and Florida State on the docket early, I'm going to seek to bet Ball State games to the over.
Lamar was a slower-paced, grind-it-out team last year, with conference games regularly played in the low 60's for possession count. The Cardinals were one of the worst shooting teams in the country, ranking 344th in effective field goal percentage nationally.
But the pace and the shooting are likely to change this season.
Jordan Fee comes in from FAU, where he was an assistant head coach. He's also coached at the Division II level.
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Quante Berry comes in from Memphis. He's also played at Temple and Providence, so his skillset should translate well to the Southland Conference.
Niccolo Moretti and Jeremiah Jones also figure to score a decent amount of points and Division II transfer Caden Hinker will surprise some people in this league this season after transferring in from Augustana University (SD).
Lamar played fast in the non-conference last season, but the Cardinals are going to kick it up a notch this year. With early-season games against Omaha, Rice and UL Monroe, I'm going to target the over in those matchups.
Last season, the Texans were such a bizarre team, one that played with inconsistent tempo throughout the season.
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Tarleton State was winning games while playing fast, but this team played at a snail's pace down the stretch, losing its last five games.
Billy Gillispie stepped down this offseason, and Eric Haut comes in after he was an assistant coach at Utah State.
Haut wants to implement a disrupting, risk-taking defense that's going to force turnovers. On the other side, the offense is going to immediately look to run off of those turnovers.
Transition basketball should be something we see a lot of, and while the Texans shot fewer 3-pointers than any team in the country last season, I don't expect that to be the case this season.
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The roster was constructed with length, versatility and a style of position-less basketball that's bound to create problems for conference foes.
With games against Drake, USC, Weber State and Texas Southern early in the season, Tarleton State overs are something I want to be on until the market catches up.
Pace Shift: Slower
Ben Jacobson's Northern Iowa team played at the second-slowest tempo in the country in 2026, averaging just 62 possessions per game.
The pace was a part of the chess match, as his defensive scheme could frustrate better offensive teams. We saw it deployed against Tulsa, Saint Mary's, Belmont and others.
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Now Jacobson moves over to Utah State.
Retaining MWC Player of the Year Mason Falslev was huge and Karson Templin is also back. Will Hornseth should fit right in after following Jacobson from Northern Iowa, and Utah State should have fairly solid rim-protecting defense.
The pieces are going to take some time to gel together, and Jacobson figures to throttle the tempo down some from his predecessor, Jerrod Calhoun.
I'll be watching the tempo closely, but the season opener against Idaho State should provide an opportunity to bet the under. When Utah State lines up against SMU and USC, we should see the pace-wars we saw while Jacobson was at Northern Iowa.
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Long time MAC member Northern Illinois has joined the Horizon League this offseason after its football team made a move to the Mountain West.
The new basketball league affords NIU some more regional matchups with conference opponents and a better chance to compete long-term.
New head coach Matt Majkrzak looks to do just that. The former Division II coach comes in from Northern Michigan, and we're going to see an offensive style that's certainly counter-culture given the way college basketball offensive schemes have been trending.
Majkrak operates a methodical offensive approach, which works in set plays out of the half-court game, rather than seeking to run in transition and get to the rim. Nine D-II players are on this roster and there should be some growing pains offensively the first couple of weeks of the season.
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However, the style should be very slow and methodical offensively ,with offenses that look similar to Iowa, Bellarmine and Princeton's cutting schemes.
An early-season contest against Grambling State provides a decent look to the under, but Tulsa and Dayton might be able to win pace-wars and run on NIU, so those games will be price dependent.
Games against Bowling Green, SIU Edwardsville and Eastern Illinois are also going to be on the radar as games to go low.
Tevon Saddler ran an interesting tempo during his time with the Colonels. Nicholls would regularly run up and down the floor in the non-conference portions of its schedule, and it would frequently put scares into high-major programs.
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Saddler is off to the NBA, though, and 31-year old Darion Brown comes in, taking over a team that was 14-19 last season.
Christian Winborne is the major returning contributor, averaging eight points per game last season. He's joined by transfers from Chicago State, Southern Indiana, Hawaii and Western Michigan, as Brown has compiled a roster of players who are tough on the defensive end.
Nicholls isn't going to have a great offense this season. While the backcourt play could be solid, shooters are going to need to emerge.
Brown wants hard-nose defense to be played, and we see a lot of that in the Southland Conference during league play.
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Early-season opportunities against Louisiana Tech, Southern Miss and Troy provide spots to take the under. I'll also be targeting this group in Southland play, as I'm expecting lower-scoring conference matchups out of Nicholls.
Chris Wright is no stranger to HBCU basketball, and he's coached in the state of Alabama before. However, this is his chance to lead a Division I program as he takes over at Alabama State.
His idea for constructing this roster is rooted in toughness, discipline and unselfishness, and he wants to field a solid defensive squad.
Wright has recruited good defensive players and the team will "find ways to score points," according to a quote he gave to Blue Ribbon Yearbook.
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Tony Madlock usually had this team running up and down, but outside of the breakout season of 2025, the Hornets' defense wasn't strong enough to hold down their opponents and the losses continued to pile up.
Expect a slower offensive approach with a majority of their sets being executed in the half court.
The guard play is going to be solid, but Alabama State isn't going to be a strong rebounding team on offense, so there should be a lot of one-and-done possessions.
Early-season games against San Jose State, UC Davis and Fresno State should afford opportunities to look to the under, and I'll seek to look that way when the Hornets enter SWAC play.
