Sam Avellone

College basketball fans will be treated to a rare mid-February, non-conference matchup on Saturday when the Louisville Cardinals take their 4-game winning streak to Fort Worth to play the Baylor Bears at the neutral site of Dickies Arena. Unlike Louisville, Baylor is in the midst of its third losing streak of the season — dropping its last 2 games to Iowa State and BYU by 6 combined points over the last week. Baylor has struggled mightily against its best offensive opponents, sitting 0-7 SU against KenPom’s top-50 offenses with an average margin of defeat greater than 13 points per game. Unfortunately for the Bears, the Cards are top-12 in efficiency and top-25 in effective field-goal percentage with a bevy of 3-point shooters and a freshman phenom in Mikel Brown Jr., who just went off for 45 points on 10 made threes against NC State. 

Meanwhile, the Cardinals haven’t fared well against opponents who pull in offensive rebounds at an elite rate, which is one of the few things Baylor does well. The Bears are top-20 in offensive rebounding rate, and they’ll be even better in this department if Dan Skillings returns from his 3-game absence. You could argue both of these teams are paper tigers. In fact, only 3 teams in the country rate lower than Louisville in EvanMiya’s Opponent Adjust metric, which compares how a team plays against above-average teams to how it plays against below-average teams — and Baylor is one of them. In other words, both the Cards and the Bears have really struggled to step up in class this year. 

Louisville is just 4-5 ATS away from home, and with wins over Kentucky, Cincinnati, Indiana, Virginia Tech, SMU and NC State, the Cards already have a strong tournament resume. With a highly-coveted top-4 seed and double-bye in the ACC Tournament within reach, I question Louisville’s motivation to win this odd non-conference game by the necessary margin. Add in their issues covering spreads away from home and their struggles in games against strong offensive-rebounding teams, and taking the points with Baylor becomes more appealing — especially when you consider the Bears have covered in 3 of their last 4 and are playing much closer to home than the Cards.

Louisville vs Baylor prediction: Baylor +7.5 (-110) available at time of publishing. Playable to +6.5.

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The Fighting Irish are in a prime position to run the table next year, with their most difficult challenge also being a massive revenge spot against Miami – this time in South Bend. You best believe that game is already circled for Marcus Freeman’s squad. Outside of the Hurricanes, Notre Dame’s most challenging games will be against SMU and BYU. Frankly, it would be shocking if the Irish struggled with the rest of their opponents. I expect this squad to be laser-focused and seeking revenge after being left out of the College Football Playoff, which is a scary proposition for the rest of the country, considering Freeman has led the Irish to the title game already.

When comparing Notre Dame’s price to the others around it on the board, it’s a no-brainer. In-state rival and national champion Indiana will have to replace their Heisman-winning quarterback and multiple key contributors, and the Hoosiers will have to play teams like Ohio State, Michigan, and USC along the way. Speaking of Ohio State, the co-favorite Buckeyes will have 3 of the top 5 teams on the odds board on their schedule next year, making their price very unappealing. In addition to OSU, Texas will have to play Oklahoma, Ole Miss, LSU and Texas A&M. Oregon’s path is a bit less daunting than Ohio State’s and Texas’, but the Ducks still have to play Washington, Ohio State, Michigan and USC in their quest to reach their 3rd straight College Football Playoff. 

Notre Dame projects to have plenty of returning talent and depth, especially across the offensive line, linebackers and secondary. CJ Carr will be back at quarterback, and while his running mates in the backfield will look a bit different next year, the group is still loaded with highly recruited running backs that have awaited their turn behind Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price, as well as stud freshmen like Jonaz Walton and Javian Osborne. Carr’s targets will consist of another deep tight end room – a Notre Dame staple – and a very talented wide receiver room led by seasoned veterans in Jaden Greathouse and Jordan Faison, accompanied by multiple 4-star freshmen. If there were any holes in this roster, Freeman and his staff filled them with a very strong transfer portal class headlined by CB Jayden Sanders (Michigan) and a former 5-star WR in Quincy Porter (Ohio State).

A few other teams stand out to me as solid long-shot bets at their price like Penn State (75/1, bet365) and South Carolina (250/1, BetMGM), but Notre Dame feels like the team with the most win equity heading into the 2026 season.