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The Fairleigh Dickinson Knights (1-1) and Creighton Bluejays (1-0) tangle Sunday in Omaha. Tip-off at the CHI Health Center is at 5 p.m. ET (FS1). Let’s analyze FanDuel Sportsbook’s college basketball odds around the Fairleigh Dickinson vs. Creighton odds, and make our expert college basketball picks and predictions.
Fairleigh Dickinson opened its season Monday and was drubbed 113-72 by the Miami Hurricanes. The Knights then bounced back — with a near inverse reflection of that score (112-72) — in an unlined Thursday home win against DIII Purchase. FDU went 15-17 last season.
No. 14 Creighton earned a 99-86 win over Texas-Rio Grande Valley in its Wednesday opener on home hardwood. The Bluejays failed to cover a -29 in a game that did a flyby on a total of 155.5. Senior C Ryan Kalkbrenne scored 49 points as CU shot 60% from the floor and allowed a 40% success rate on 3s in a game that twice had a mere 5-point differential in the final 5 minutes.
– Rankings: USA TODAY Sports Men’s Basketball Coaches Poll
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Fairleigh Dickinson at Creighton odds
Provided by FanDuel Sportsbook; access USA TODAY Sports Scores and Sports Betting Odds hub for a full list of college basketball odds. Lines last updated at 7:22 a.m. ET.
- Moneyline: Off the board
- Against the spread (ATS): Fairleigh Dickinson +34.5 (-118) | Creighton -34.5 (-104)
- Over/Under (O/U): 163.5 (O: -110 | U: -110)
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Fairleigh Dickinson at Creighton picks and predictions
Prediction
Creighton 101, Fairleigh Dickinson 64
Moneyline
Not available, nor would you want to bet it if it was available. PASS.
Against the spread
This is essentially a top-20 team taking on a bottom-20 team. KenPom pegs Fairleigh Dickinson at No. 354 of 364. Creighton is tabbed at No. 17.
This spread is a high hurdle, but its FDU’s style of play — up-tempo with a great deal of possession churn — that makes it worth a look from the Creighton point of view. The Knights don’t swim in these waters often, but last season they did play Seton Hall and Illinois in the non-conference portion of the season. FDU was undone by 30-plus points in both, and neither required any sort of late fade to get to that point.
Still, at its best FDU is a high-frequency distance offense that does well in getting to the line. And it hunts turnovers on defense.
So, the Knights were clearly not the best version of themselves in the Monday setback at Miami, a loss by 41 points when getting 27.5.
A year ago, Creighton played 4 of its first 10 games in this bottom-third neighborhood. CU won those 4 games by an average of 36.8 points per game.
The Bluejays play excellent defense and are solid in avoiding turnovers.
CREIGHTON -34.5 (-104) is worth a partial-unit play.
Over/Under
The expected pace says these 2 can get into the 160s. A lot of CU games end up being about a coin flip in these types games due to the Bluejays being a high-frequency 3-point shooting squad.
Having some 2-sided distance and turnover action would not be a surprise. Again, perhaps with an adjusted-downward unit side, BACK THE OVER 163.5 (-110).
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