This is a weird Saturday across the college basketball universe. Instead of starting the slate at noon Eastern, DraftKings elected to make an early slate for those three and make the one starting at 2:30 pm Eastern the main slate. This is the larger window of college basketball today with eight seven games. The game featuring the two blue-bloods, UCLA and North Carolina, got postponed due to COVID. We still have some good ones on here though.
We start off with Notre Dame heading down to Bloomington to take on Indiana. Georgia Tech is out west to face USC. Marquette heads to Cincinnati to take on Xavier. West Virginia heads down to Birmingham to take on UAB. Providence heads up to Storrs to take on UConn. Then we finish off with two prime time games with Houston heading up to Stillwater and LSU hosting Louisiana Tech. There's still some good basketball on here.
In this article, I will be providing you with my daily fantasy college basketball lineup picks for DraftKings on 12/18/21 starting at 2:30 pm Eastern. I’ll be providing multiple player suggestions for players at guard and forward, aiming to highlight one option apiece at the high, middle, and lower end of the salary scale. Good luck, RotoBallers.
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DraftKings CBB DFS Guards
Taz Sherman, West Virginia ($8,100)
Just because the Mountaineers are a slow-paced team doesn't mean that their players can't hit value. Defensive stats count nicely in DFS. That's not usually the case for Sherman. He's a solid defender, but his real strength is his scoring and efficient shooting. You need those efficient shooters on a team that doesn't take many shots. Sherman continues to score about a third of the team's points on any given night. He hasn't shot under 47% in a game since before Thanksgiving. Ride Sherman while he's hot.
R.J. Cole, Connecticut ($7,100)
Cole is the anti-Sherman. He's not particularly efficient with his shot, but he stuffs the stat sheet and gets a lot of points from the foul line. Cole has at least 25 DraftKings points in five straight games, spurring the Huskies to wins over St. Bonaventure and Virginia Commonwealth and a near-upset of West Virginia. Providence is another strong team, but Cole is too cheap for the kind of numbers that he's been putting up over the last three weeks or so.
Drew Peterson, USC ($6,400)
Peterson is the kind of player that I gravitate towards in DFS. He's not a big time scorer, but he does enough. Not only that, but he put up 20.75 DraftKings points while only hitting one shot against UC-Irvine last week. That means most of his production comes from peripheral stats. USC is winning and no one has been as consistent as Peterson. He hasn't been under 20 DraftKings points yet this season. I'll take that kind of consistency in any lineup, especially in cash games.
Jamal Shead, Houston ($5,800)
Since taking over the starting point guard job from the struggling Taze Moore on November 24, Shead has 152.5 DraftKings points in those six games. One of those was against Bryant, a team that Houston beat by 67 points, resulting in Shead only playing ten minutes. That leaves 138.5 DraftKings points in five real games since the switch. He's a great distributor on this team and a capable scorer that plays a lot of minutes in close games. He has nice upside against an Oklahoma State team that has struggled to close out teams.
Bryce Williams, Oklahoma State ($4,800)
Williams received his first start of the season on Monday and responded with 45 DraftKings points in 38 minutes. Williams provided points in a hurry off the bench and remained a more than capable scorer as part of the starting five. He's a strong shooter that is dangerous from the outside. He has great upside so long as he is starting for the Cowboys, even against a tougher team like Houston.
Also consider: Marcus Sasser, Houston ($8,300); Paul Scruggs, Xavier ($7,400); Tyler Kolek, Marquette ($6,100); Dane Goodwin, Notre Dame ($5,500); Sean McNeil, West Virginia ($5,300); Andre Jackson, Connecticut ($4,600)
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DraftKings CBB DFS Forwards
Isaiah Mobley, USC ($8,900)
His younger brother Evan is an early favorite for the NBA's Rookie of the Year this year. The elder Mobley is picking up where his younger brother left off last year for the Trojans. Mobley has at least 40 DraftKings points in five of the last six games. The only team that held him under was a Washington State team that brought the game to a screeching halt. Georgia Tech will try to do the same thing, but Mobley's size is going to be a real problem for the Bees here.
Tari Eason, LSU ($7,600)
The Tigers have yet to really turn the Cincinnati transfer loose yet. Eason earned SEC Player of the Week honors last week despite only playing 52 minutes in two games. He put in another strong and efficient performance in the blowout win over Northwestern State on Tuesday despite playing only 20 minutes. Eason is an effortless scorer and a good rebounder. We can assume that his minutes will continue to increase little by little, but he's still putting up huge numbers without playing more than 28 minutes in any game this season.
Justin Lewis, Marquette ($6,800)
Xavier is a tough team, but Lewis still put up good numbers against Wisconsin, UCLA, and Kansas State in his last three games. Those are all good defensive teams. The freshman has contributed across the board so far for Marquette, flirting with double-doubles almost nightly. Even if Lewis's shot isn't falling, he does enough in the other categories to give him a solid floor for the price.
Chevez Goodwin, USC ($6,000)
Pop quiz: who leads USC in usage? No, it's not Isaiah Mobley. It's Goodwin with 24.5%. Goodwin is also shooting 64.5% from the floor this season, so he's the model of efficiency too. Mobley gets most of the attention, but Goodwin has been a great sidekick the way Mobley was to his younger brother last season. I like the fact that we can get a guy with a high usage rate in this price range. That's a really good ceiling to chase after.
Kur Kuath, Marquette ($3,600)
The Oklahoma transfer has proven to be a load in the Big East so far. Only Wisconsin has held him under 18 DraftKings points since the first game of the season. His ceiling isn't all that high considering Kuath still isn't a scorer. He's one of the better rim protectors in the college game though and an elite rebounder. That gives him possibly the best floor of any value play out there.
Also consider: Trayce Jackson-Davis, Indiana ($8,400); Darius Days, LSU ($7,300); Jack Nunge, Xavier ($6,700); Race Thompson, Indiana ($6,500); KJ Buffen, UAB ($5,300); Max Agbonkpolo, USC ($4,700)
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