Expert Picks, Predictions & How to Watch Rutgers vs Creighton

• The Creighton Bluejays are a 3.5-point favorite over the Rutgers Scarlet Knights at the College Basketball Crown
• Both teams enter this tournament with sub-.500 records
• See below for my Rutgers vs Creighton picks, predictions, and how to watch

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A chance to hoop and a chance to take home some of that sweet NIL prize money has a pair of sub-.500 teams returning for a better end to their season, as the Rutgers Scarlet Knights (14-19) take on the Creighton Bluejays (15-17).

The books have Creighton as the betting favorite in this matchup of Big Ten vs Big East, with the winner semifinal bound to square off with the winner of Stanford-West Virginia.

Read below for my picks, predictions and how to watch Rutgers vs Creighton.

Rutgers vs Creighton Picks

• Pick: Under 151.5 points (-115 at FanDuel)

It was a rough end to the year for the Bluejays, who picked up just three wins in the final 12, but it was a mixed bag of results. There were five blowouts, though sandwiched in between four games settled by three points or less.

Their most recent? A 72-61 loss at the hands of the Seaton Hall Pirates.

The team that shows up Thursday should have the motivation to keep playing on simply for the fact the year was so tough, but there’s the added incentive of extending longtime head coach Greg McDermott’s coaching career, with the coach officially announcing his retire on March 23.

The Bluejays ranked middle of the pack in the conference in both scoring offense (75.1 points, 8th in Big East) and defense (75.0 points allowed, 7th)

But they won’t have a large chunk of their frontcourt players, including Jackson McAndrew (foot) and teammates Josh Townley-Thomas, Aleksa Dimitrijevic and Liam McChesney, giving CU four players 6-foot-10 or taller on the sideline.

Rutgers vs Creighton Key Stats

It was a trying season for the Scarlet Knights as well, who ended their campaign on a forgettable 5-11 record. And while they did manage to top Minnesota in the opening round of the Big Ten tournament, their hopes for an NCAA Tourney bid fell short in Round 2, when they lost 72-59 to UCLA.

Rutgers struggled to score all season, putting up just 70.6 points per game, while shooting a cold 41.8% from the floor. Both of those numbers rank outside of college basketball’s Top 300.

Part of their struggles in the inability to stretch the floor: the Scarlet Knights shoot just 32.8% on the season, which ranks a whopping 271st on the circuit.

Rutgers did place Top 50 when looking at KenPom’s strength of schedule metric, but that doesn’t count much if you’ve struggled as the Scarlet Knights have.

In total, they have lost all seven of their games against ranked teams on the season, and they haven’t been close, with just two of those losses coming within single digits, with the majority coming as double-digit blowout losses.

Creighton isn’t a ranked team, of course, but they did rank 41st in the same strength of schedule metric, and own a win over UConn — a team currently in the NCAA Final Four.

However, neither of these schools should be trusted. They aren’t outscoring their problems, and that should show up in the total. The Scarlet Knights have seen the Over cash in three of its last five, while Creighton has gone Under the total in three stright and four of the last five.

Rutgers vs Creighton Odds

Rutgers opens as 3.5-point underdogs in the college basketball odds, while getting +138 odds to win outright. Creighton has very short -166 odds on the moneyline, while the total is set at 151.5 points, with -110 odds on either side.

Looking for a prize breakdown? There’s a $500,000 purse on the line, with $300k going to the tourney winner, with $100k going to the runner up, and $50,000 prizes for teams that advance to the semifinal.

Odds as of April 2. New customers can claim a FanDuel promo code to get a bonus to bet on college basketball.

How to Watch Rutgers vs Creighton

This College Basketball Crown tournament semifinal goes Thursday (April 2) with Rutgers vs Creighton tipping off at 10:30pm ET from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, NV. Broadcast coverage will provided by FS1.

Rutgers finished 14th out of the 18 teams in the Big Ten during the college basketball season, while the Bluejays finished fifth in the Big East with a 9-11 conference record.