College Basketball Spread Betting - #13 Siena Saints vs. #4 Purdue Boilermakers

As much as sports betting public likes to bet on Purdue’s basketball team, they’re not the most reliable spread bet in the world. Making matters harder for Purdue is the fact that they’re marching in to March Madness without their star player, Robbie Hummel who was lost to an ACL injury for the season. Purdue is not a one-man band and has certainly shown some guile in tournament play, but they have a lot to atone for considering how badly they’ve played the spread.

The Boilermakers dropped a huge loss to Minnesota by a score of 42-69 to end their Big Ten tournament run and considering that the -2.5 line on the game was against them, you really have to wonder how strong Purdue can be in the tournament without Hummel. Considering that they’re 0-4-1 ATS in their last 5 games, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to trust them.

Obviously you have to take in to consideration how the Minnesota loss screws the numbers, but the fact remains that Purdue is horrendous against the betting spread. In the past five games without Hummel, they’ve not only lost to the spread, they’ve done so by a margin of -9.0 against the spread. That means that on the -4.0 basketball betting spread, they’re slated to actually lose this game by 5-points. I mean, that’s if their current play keeps up.

#13 Siena Saints (27-6) vs. #4 Purdue Boilermakers (27-5)
Friday, March 19th --- Spokane Arena --- 2:30pm EST
NCAAB Betting Line: Purdue -4 (130)

When you get past the top-two seeds, it’s almost impossible to find harrowing spreads. There’s a lot of things to like about Purdue from a coaching standpoint, but they haven’t fared well at all when it comes to the betting line. Making this game even more confusing is that Siena hasn’t done that much better as a basketball betting investment.

Siena is just 2-4 ATS in their past 6 games even though they went 5-1 SU during that run. Oddly enough, as bad as Purdue is against the betting spread, Siena’s trends make this one an absolute nightmare.

So let’s back up for a moment and reassess the matchup. Is Siena in the same class as Purdue? Not even remotely. Even without their best player, Purdue has shown plenty signs of life with what they have remaining. I do not trust them on the betting line, but with a hesitant hand I’m willing to stand by them with a relatively low spread to cover.

At the very least, Purdue now knows how hard it will be for them to not only win games, but dominate. If you bet Purdue in this game then you’re hoping that they went to the drawing board and found the answers they were looking for.