NCAAB

College Basketball Daily Fantasy Helper: Thursday 12/17/20

Matt Hiatt Dec 17th, 2020
Marcus Zegarowski and the Creighton Blue Jays travel to St. John's for a fantasy friendly matchup. Who should we consider rostering on Thursday night?

College basketball season is finally here, and we have a four-game slate today.

March Madness is a ways off at this point, 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 slate, which locks at 7:00 p.m. EST.

Which players should you be targeting, and why?

Guards

Julian Champagnie, St. John's (NY) ($7,900) - Champagnie is taking an eye-popping 31.2% of the St. John's (NY) Red Storm shots when he's on the floor. He also has strong rebounding and defensive rates, per KenPom. He's a great target in a game that projects to play up-tempo and should include a lot of scoring. The game total sits at 161 which is nearly 17 points higher than any of the other three games on the slate.

Marcus Zegarowski, Creighton ($7,300) - The Creighton Bluejays point guard plays a ton of minutes, takes a lot of shots, and has the ability to rack up assists. Needless to say, he's an intriguing DFS target. Zegarowski is the Bluejays second-leading scorer (13.8 points per game). The junior leads the team in assists (5.8 per game) and steals (1.7 per game). There's also room for improvement as his field goal percentage is down about 9% from last season.

Denzel Mahoney, Creighton ($6,800) - Mahoney is the Bluejays' leading scorer. He's also active on both ends of the court. The senior is averaging 16.2 points, 3.6 rebounds, 2.4 assists, and 1.6 steals in 29.2 minutes of action. Throw in a pace-up game against the defensive-deficient Red Storm and Mahoney makes for a tremendous play. St. John's is 14th in KenPom's temp rankings and 111th in KenPom's defensive rankings.

Mitch Ballock, Creighton ($6,100) - Ballock emerged from his shooting slump to pour in 26 points in a close loss to Marquette on Monday night. The sharpshooter is in a great spot to repeat that performance as the Blue Jays travel to St. John's. The Red Storm are allowing opponents to connect on 37.6% of their three-point field goal attempts and 55.8% of their two-point field goal attempts. Both of those percentages rank in the bottom third of Division One college basketball, per KenPom.

DJ Carton, Marquette ($5,900) - Carton is taking a healthy 25.4% of the Golden Eagles' shots when he's on the floor. He also leads the Golden Eagles in assist rate (24.7% per KenPom) and steal rate (3.5% per KenPom). He's recorded at least 26.9 FanDuel points in three out of the last four games. Carton is one of the best values on the entire slate.

Myles Cale, Seton Hall ($4,900) - Salary relief is hard to find on Thursday night. Cale starts and plays a ton of minutes. However, he's pretty scoring reliant, so if his shot is not falling, it could be an ugly night. However, he's one of the cheaper players who can get 25 FanDuel points if he's playing well.

Forwards

Sandro Mamukelashvili, Seton Hall ($7,700) - The Seton Hall Pirates' offense flows through the senior center. Mamu is taking an impressive 31.1% of the Pirates' shot attempts when he's on the floor. He's averaging a team-leading 20.4 points and 7.4 rebounds in 34.6 minutes. The matchup with Marquette's solid defense (44th in KenPom's defensive ratings) won't be easy, but Mamu has scored 30-plus real-life points in two out of the last three games.

Dawson Garcia, Marquette ($6,000) - The four-star prospect is emerging as one of the Golden Eagles' key players this season. While there will growing pains, Garcia is a force on both ends of the court. The freshman is taking 25.8% of the Golden Eagles' shot attempts when he's on the floor. He's playing the second-most minutes on the team and owns a 110.1 offensive rating, per KenPom. Perhaps, most importantly, he fills one of the three forward spots on Thursday night (there are very few appealing options at forward). Frontcourt mates, Jamal Cain ($5,400) and Justin Lewis ($5,400) are both fine plays, too.

Dzmitry Ryuny, San Francisco ($5,200) - Ryuny is a menace on both ends of the court. He's only averaging 25.9 minutes per game, but that's due to a combination of blowouts and foul trouble. Additionally, Ryuny has recorded three double-doubles over the last seven games. If he can stay out of foul trouble, there's a chance he could see 32-34 minutes against the Oregon Ducks. If that happens, he should easily pay off his cheap salary. He's averaging nearly 0.85 FanDuel points per minute.

Ike Obiagu, Seton Hall ($4,200) - The forward spot is tough to fill, and there are very few viable options, especially on the lower spectrum of the salary scale. Obiagu is averaging 0.75 FanDuel points per minute. At that production rate, he'll need to play 22.4 minutes to pay off his salary. The seven-footer is averaging 25.5 minutes over the last two games.

Matthew Hiatt is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Matthew Hiatt also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username easternmh. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his/her 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.