DFS College Basketball: Opening Night Picks & Predictions

This article is part of our DFS College Basketball series.

Welcome to the 2024-25 college basketball season! Opening night will deliver the vast majority of teams in action, and DraftKings will feature an 11-game slate with a $5,000 top prize up for grabs. 

Here at RotoWire, we'll be using this format to cover the larger DFS slates all season long. Each preview will contain picks from the upper, middle and value tiers. The focus will largely be on DraftKings due to the larger contest sizes and more reactive pricing, but we'll occasionally sneak in a FanDuel special for values that are simply too good to pass up. 

On days that don't have long-form advice columns, we recommend checking out our brand new College Basketball DFS Recommendations page, where a number of experienced DFS players and college basketball editors on our staff will nominate their favorite plays by salary tier. These recommendations will be denoted with a star on our lineup optimizer, which I'll go into more detail on below.

With this being the inaugural column for the 2024-25 season, I first want to run down a few of the tools we offer here on RotoWire. The home base for most of our subscribers is our newly-redesigned DFS College Basketball Lineup Optimizer, but as any DFS player knows, an optimizer is only as good as how you use it. Sure, go ahead and give the default optimizer a spin, but if there's a play you're not confident in, we encourage using the red X to remove them from your player pool. Think our formula might overvalue a mid-major player whose stats are built on lower competition (i.e. David Colt, Emmanuel Innocenti from Monday night)? Boom, trust your gut and eliminate them from the pool. This also works great with injured players who we're pretty sure will be out but don't know definitively yet. You can also "like" a player to increase their projection by 20 percent, or manually change a projection to whatever you like! If you agree with any of my recommendations below, use the padlock button to make sure they are featured in your lineup, or if mass entering, increase their minimum exposure percentage via the customizations menu. In addition to exposure, the "Customizations" menu at the top of the screen features a whole new assortment of options for variance, custom groups and more.

Some of my other favorite tools include the DFS Matchup Info page, where you can sort the games by implied total, as well as offensive/defensive efficiency stats calculated by our our developers behind the scenes. It's the perfect place to get started, as it will help you find out which games to target. Here's a sneak peek at what that page looks like for opening night:

Once we get a few games into the season, our Advanced College Basketball Lineups page is a resource that's second to none. Here, you'll be able to view recent starters for each team in the player pool alongside salaries, with stats like minutes, usage and fantasy PPG included. It's perfect for researching mid-majors early in the year. You can also click on any team logo to navigate to a team-specific page, which shows usage from last year among other stats. Here's one for Kansas, which we'll refer to later in this column.

Last but certainly not least, any DFS player knows that the best potential values are often created by injuries, so it's imperative to check out our College Basketball Injury Report, which you can filter by the DFS slate of your choice. 

If you like what you see or just want to give these tools a try, head to hsmyyt.com/free for a free 48-hour trial. We won't ask for a credit card, and the trial simply expires at its conclusion. That also covers every other sport on the site.

Without further delay, let's jump into my favorite plays on the Tuesday college basketball slate.

Top Players

Mark Sears, G, Alabama ($9,300)

Here we have a fifth-year senior coming off a 21.5 ppg scoring season that's suiting up for an Alabama team with the highest implied total of the day (beating UNC's mark by ~4 points). Sears is the third-highest priced player on the state, behind freshman Cooper Flagg ($9,700) and Wooden Award favorite Hunter Dickinson ($9,500), the latter of which is a bit banged up with a foot injury. Effectively, Sears is the least risky option of the bunch and safe to deploy in any format. Even in a blowout, Sears might have to play heavy minutes due to other Alabama backcourt injuries. Chris Youngblood (ankle) is expected to be out until December, while Latrell Wrightsell is expected to be limited in the opener with an undisclosed injury.

Norchad Omier, G, Baylor ($8,100)

The Gonzaga/Baylor showdown is the evening's marquee matchup, and although it has the third-highest total at time of posting, we expect this to be the most competitive of the bunch. That means Omier will have a far better chance of playing the whole game than Dickinson ($9,500), making him my big man of choice. While Graham Ike ($8,200) is in consideration as well, I'll take the other side of this matchup due to Baylor's stout defense. The Zags will try to play at a fast tempo, which means more possessions for Omier, who averaged 17.0 ppg and 10.0 rpg last year with Miami. 

Walter Clayton, G, Florida ($7,500)

Clayton can certainly live up to the production from the likes of Sears or RJ Davis, but you get a significant price break here. He's expected to be Florida's starting point guard after a season in which he posted 17.6 ppg, 3.6 rpg and 2.6 apg. On Monday night, he draws a slightly up-tempo matchup against South Florida that has far less blowout risk than the likes of Alabama, North Carolina, Kentucky, Kansas, Duke and Houston.

Middle Tier

Mark Mitchell, G/F, Missouri

Mitchell comes in as a transfer from Duke, where he averaged 11.6 ppg and 5.9 rpg despite playing on a crowded roster loaded with talent. He'll now get more space to shine in his third collegiate season at Missouri and is the first of two Tigers selections in this column due to an up-tempo matchup against Memphis. In the only logged exhibition game, Mitchell scored a team-high 22 points, so we know he's already a big part of the offense.

Jaxson Robinson, G, Kentucky ($5,800)

Robinson followed head coach Mark Pope to Kentucky, where he projects to start at shooting guard for the 2024-25 Wildcats. He averaged 14.2 ppg and shot 35.4 percent from distance last year in the Big 12, and look for those skills to transfer to the SEC. Wright State also offers a tempo boost, as the Raiders were No. 22 in KenPom's adj. tempo rating a season ago. In two exhibition games this October, Robinson put up 24 and 19 points, so he's clearly an offensive focal point. I'm also a fan of fellow Kentucky starters Andrew Carr ($6,600) and Lamont Butler ($5,500), but Robinson gets the nod here due to his preseason role.

Kon Knueppel, G/F, Duke ($5,200)

Often times a freshman goes overlooked in terms of pricing, especially when your team has the highest priced player on the slate with Cooper Flagg commanding a whopping $9,700. Instead I'll turn to Knuepel, who was one of three players (Flagg, Caleb Foster) to start both of Duke's posted exhibition games, scoring 19 and 17 points. He also racked up 11 rebounds and nine assists combined, so the production is there for a far cheaper price. The fact that he has dual-position eligibility is a cherry on top.

Value Plays

Caleb Grill, G, Missouri ($3,400)

Grill was limited to nine games (five starts) for the Tigers last season before a wrist injury cut short what would have been his fifth collegiate season. After gaining clearance for a sixth season, as well as medical clearance from the injury, he's now ready to be deployed in an up-tempo matchup against Memphis. Grill had 20 points and six boards in an October exhibition against Lincoln, so we know he's ready to go. He might be the best value play on the slate.

Labaron Philon, G, Alabama ($3,100)

I already mentioned the Alabama backcourt injuries to Youngblood and Wrightsell, and Philon -- a four-star freshman -- appears to be in a prime spot to take advantage. Listed at No. 32 on the ESPN 100, Philon is described as the point guard of the future, and has the ability to score in a variety of ways despite a developing shot. He started an October 18 exhibition against Wake Forest, logging 13 points, four rebounds and five assists across 26 minutes. Auburn transfer Aden Holloway ($4,100) is another salary relief option based on the same logic in case you aren't ready to trust a freshman.

FanDuel Special

VJ Edgecombe, G, Baylor ($5,000)

Baylor doesn't have an "official" exhibition games on the ledger, but Edgecombe is a five-star freshman expected to start and contribute immediately for the Bears. With FanDuel only offering five games on its slate, the Baylor/Gonzaga game has the highest over/under on the slate by four full points, and Edgecombe is an easy way to make sure you get a piece. He's also a whopping $3,000 cheaper than his $8k price on DraftKings.

Michael Ajayi, G, Gonzaga ($4,900)

Like Edgecombe, we have a massive difference between FanDuel and DraftKings pricing, and Ajayi checks in at $3400 cheaper -- the largest difference of the day between the two sites. Ajayi started the first exhibition game against USC, tallying 13 points and six rebounds. He came off the bench in favor of Braden Huff in a later exhibition against Warner Pacific, but still had 14 points and six rebounds in only 14 minutes. We at least know he's in the rotation, and coming off a season at Pepperdine that saw averages of 17.2 points and 9.9 rebounds, his floor should be high despite the tough matchup.

In case you're curious how the other differences stack up, he's everyone $1600 or greater...

Pro Tip: RotoWire doesn't get exhibition stats from our stats provider, but they're still out there on many team websites. Just Google "[team] + men's basketball schedule" and it's often available. Finding these box scores, especially from smaller schools, is often key to discovering DFS value early in the season.