NCAAB

College Basketball Daily Fantasy Helper: Tuesday 12/4/18

LaGerald Vick and the Jayhawks take on a much weaker opponent at Fog Allen Fieldhouse. Who should you be targeting there and elsewhere tonight?

College basketball season is back! And this year, with it comes the return of college basketball DFS.

March Madness is still four months away, but you can get in all the college hoops hype by playing daily contests at FanDuel today. If you've played NBA DFS before, it's quite simple: pick a total of eight players -- four guards, three forwards and one utility spot you can use for either position. Stay within the $50,000 salary cap and field the team you think will score the most fantasy points.

Where scoring differs from NBA is in the blocks and steals categories, with each worth two FanDuel points apiece rather than the three you get in daily NBA contests.

Now that you're in the know, we can attack today's main slate, which locks at 7:00 p.m. EST and consists of six games. Only one game comes in with an over/under above 150, and that's in what's likely to be a blowout between the second-ranked Kansas Jayhawks and the Wofford Terriers.

Tuesday, December 4th
Providence at Boston College
Indiana at Penn State
Notre Dame at Oklahoma
Wofford at Kansas
Michigan at Northwestern
West Virginia at Florida


Which players should you be targeting, and why?

Guards

Ky Bowman, Boston College ($8,500): Entering play with a 25.2% usage rate, Bowman leads Boston College with 19.4 points per game on 14.4 field goal attempts (6.0 from three). Building off a successful 2017-18, he's upped his free throw attempts to 5.3 per game while knocking them down at a 83.8% rate. He's an efficient scorer, and with the help of his peripherals -- 6.7 rebounds, 3.6 assists, 1.3 steals and 1.0 blocks -- he brings a high fantasy ceiling into any matchup. He's averaging 35.4 FanDuel points a game with five games of 30-plus and maxing out at 55.9 back on November 19. He has played 39 or 40 minutes in 5 of his 7 games, as well, so he's a lock for long run here against Providence.

LaGerald Vick, Kansas ($7,800): If you can't find the value to afford Bowman, no one can fault you for locking in Vick as your top-priced guard. The 6'5" senior is just fourth on the team in usage (20.3%), but he's been super-efficient with his looks. Owning a player efficiency rating (PER) of 22.7, he's connected on his 13.3 field goal attempts to the tune of a 75.0% effective field goal percentage. He's knocking down 4.7 threes per contest -- all the while contributing 4.0 rebounds, 1.8 assists and 1.5 steals. He's been particularly good against weaker opponents, having gone for 32 and 33 FanDuel points against Vermont and Louisiana-Lafayette, respectively, earlier this season. He has the potential to exceed 35 FanDuel points against Wofford, KenPom.com's lowest-ranked team and lowest-ranked defense on tonight's slate.

Zavier Simpson, Michigan ($6,400): This isn't the most appealing of games for fantasy purposes. The 128.0 over/under is dead last by 8.5 points, and neither team is within KenPom's top 250 in adjusted tempo. It's going to be a slow, grind-it-out matchup of Big Ten foes, but Simpson's thrived in basically all types of games this season. He went scoreless in Michigan's lowest-scoring win of the season, but he still contributed seven assists and four rebounds. And further, in back-to-back games against tough teams in North Carolina and Purdue, he's had 19.8 and 28.7 FanDuel points thanks in large part to 13 combined assists and 10 total rebounds across the two. He also has two games of 30-plus FanDuel points, and his 36.0% assist rate makes him the team's primary playmaker. Whether they come up short of 70 points or not, Simpson's going to be involved in a big way.

Devon Dotson, Kansas ($5,900): Coach Bill Self's Jayhawks carry the highest total on Tuesday's slate, at 83.75 points. That's 10.75 clear of the next-closest team, and the 151.0 over/under is a whole eight points higher, too. Targeting KU players in bunches should be the way to go even if they are 16.5-point favorites. Dotson has found his way into this piece before, and it's for good reason. While he remains cheap, he has 22.4 or more FanDuel points in three straight games, scoring in double-digits and playing 30 or more minutes in each. He even has 10 assists over the last 3, which helps to provide a nice 20-or-so-point floor, when all he needs for four-times value at this cost is 23.6. The juicy matchup only helps to boost his ceiling for tournament formats.

Jordan Chatman, Boston College ($5,600): Outside of Rock Chalk's sky-high implied total, the majority of this group -- 10 of the 11 remaining teams, to be exact -- is bunched together between 66.75 points and 72.75 points. That makes KU appealing, but it also keeps mostly everyone else in play. That goes for BC especially as their 72-point total is fourth overall on the slate, and they sit as three-point home favorites versus Providence. The Friars are outside the top 50 in adjusted defensive efficiency, and they have allowed 79-plus points twice this season. A player like Chatman, who relies mainly on scoring (11.9 of his 18.4 FanDuel points per game) is set to benefit from the matchup. He could also come at low ownership following two poor outings in a row. But he's had three games of more than 20 FanDuel points, including two games of 20-plus real-world points. And that's a result of his big playing time as he's averaging 35.4 minutes, with five games of 36 or more. He and Bowman make for a good backcourt combo this evening.

Forwards

Dedric Lawson, Kansas ($8,800): Going back to Kansas, rostering Lawson seems less palatable given the landscape of the slate, but all-out fading him is tough. The dude has three straight games with 47 or more FanDuel points, averaging 24.7 points, 13.3 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 1.7 blocks-plus-steals over that span of games. That hasn't come against the easiest of competition either -- Stanford, Tennessee and Marquette -- so it's that much more impressive. That shouldn't come as a surprise given Lawson's production while at Memphis, which tells us that this absolutely no fluke. He has the highest floor and ceiling on the slate; the question is just whether or not you can afford to pay the price.

Jon Teske, Michigan ($6,600): Against the Wolverines' top-ranked defense, there's no playing Wildcats tonight. If you're playing anyone in this game, go with the maize and blue, but don't go too crazy. Stick with the mid-range guys in Simpson and Teske. Down low, the 7'1" Teske is under-priced relative to his recent play. Playing 34 and 31 minutes in his last 2, the big man has produced 26.0 and 31.1 FanDuel points, respectively, with 17 points and 8 boards the last time out -- which followed a six-point, five-block game on Wednesday. In the two games prior to that, he had played fewer than 30 minutes, yet reached at least 24.2 minutes in each. His 8.7% block rate is first on the team and is right on par with the rate the Wildcats allow defenders to tally blocks. The slow pace should favor Teske's game, allowing you to lock him in with confidence tonight.

Nate Watson, Providence ($5,800): Don't go out of your way to get to Watson; instead, think of him as a good way of rounding out your lineup. This price falls in between the top and bottom options, and he's been producing well this season. Despite averaging 18.9 FanDuel points (just 3.26 points per $1,000), the sophomore has put together six double-digit scoring games en route to four games of 20.4 or more FanDuel points. His minutes haven't gone past 26 and usually come in around 23, but there are far worse options to roll out. The Golden Eagles are 69th in defensive efficiency, and the oddsmakers like the Friars to manage 69.0 points on the road, putting them above four other teams on this Tuesday's slate.

Kristian Doolittle, Oklahoma ($4,800): Notre Dame has a respectable defense, ranking 70th in adjusted efficiency, but that's only good enough for 11th of the 12 teams in action for this slate. It's for that reason that the home Sooners possess the second-highest total on the slate, at 72.75 points. This was going to be a spot to target Jamuni McNeace, but he's been ruled out with an ankle injury. So we get some value to pivot to in junior forward Kristian Doolittle. To this point, Doolittle is averaging 20.9 minutes, but McNeace leaves 27.4 vacant for this evening's game. Now, don't expect him to get all of that run, but if he draws close to 30 minutes, that should be enough at this price. Per-40 minutes, Doolittle has averaged 11.5 points, 11.0 rebounds, 1.1 assists and 1.9 blocks-plus-steals (30.2 FanDuel points) through 7 games.



Brett Oswalt is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Brett Oswalt also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username BRO14THEKID. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in his articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.