Welcome to the 2025-26 college basketball season! Opening night will deliver a large segment of top teams in action, as well as some uncharacteristically competitive matchups. To celebrate, DraftKings will feature an eight-game slate with a $5,000 top prize up for grabs.
This season, we'll once again be covering the top CBB DFS slates in depth at RotoWire -- roughly 1-2 columns per week. Each preview will contain picks from the upper, middle and value tiers. The focus will largely be on DraftKings due to the larger contest sizes and more reactive pricing, but we'll occasionally sneak in a "FanDuel special" for values that are simply too good to pass up.
On days that don't have columns like these, we recommend checking out our brand new College Basketball DFS Recommendations page, where a number of experienced DFS players and college basketball editors on our staff will nominate their favorite plays by salary tier. These recommendations will be denoted with a star on our lineup optimizer, which I'll go into more detail on below.
College Basketball DFS Strategy Tips
With this being the inaugural column for the 2025-26 season, I first want to run down a few of the tools we offer here on RotoWire. The home base for most of our subscribers is our DFS College Basketball Lineup Optimizer, but as any DFS player knows, an optimizer is only as good as how you use it.
Sure, go ahead and give the default optimizer a spin, but if there's a play you're not confident in, we encourage using the red X to remove them from your player pool. Think our formula might overvalue a mid-major player whose stats are built on lower competition? Boom, trust your gut and eliminate them from the pool, or manually edit their projection. This option should also be utilized for injured players who we're pretty sure will be out but don't know definitively yet.
You can also "like" a player to increase their projection by 20 percent, or manually change a projection to whatever you like. If you agree with any of my recommendations below, use the padlock button to make sure they are featured in your lineup, or if mass entering, increase their minimum exposure percentage via the customizations menu.
In addition to exposure, the "Customizations" menu at the top of the screen features a whole new assortment of options for variance, custom groups and more.
College Basketball Opening Night Matchups
Some of my other favorite tools include the DFS Matchup Info page, where you can sort the games by implied total, as well as offensive/defensive efficiency stats calculated by our our developers behind the scenes. It's the perfect place to get started, as it will help you find out which games to target. I'll add this to the column a bit later once the odds are all released.
Once we get a few games into the season, our Advanced College Basketball Lineups page is a resource that's second to none. Here, you'll be able to view recent starters for each team in the player pool alongside salaries, with stats like minutes, usage and fantasy PPG included. It's perfect for researching mid-majors early in the year. You can also click on any team logo to navigate to a team-specific page, which shows usage from last year among other stats. Here's one for St. John's -- an important team for the Monday DFS slate.
Last but certainly not least, any DFS player knows that the best potential values are often created by injuries, so it's imperative to check out our College Basketball Injury Report, which you can filter by the DFS slate of your choice.
If you like what you see or just want to give these tools a try, use promo code ROTO15 at checkout for 15 percent off any subscription. You'll want to pick one including DFS tools to get full access to everything mentioned in this article, or choose an all-in-one sub if you enjoy playing Pick'em on sites like PrizePicks as well.
DraftKings College Basketball Strategy for Opening Night
For the past few years, DraftKings has largely underpriced freshman. It's been a very exploitable flaw and allowed DFS players to get major value on the big five-star players who have yet to play a game but are still projected for a big role. This year is the opposite -- pricing on the top freshman is incredibly aggressive. So, how do we handle this?
A.J. Dybantsa ($9,700) might actually be worth it after a couple of massive exhibition lines, but other freshman like Chris Cenac ($9,200), Koa Peat ($8,600) and Brayden Burries ($8,100) simply carry too high of a price tag for cash games given we have little knowledge about their roles. On top of that, the latter two Arizona players are facing Florida, and the Gators rank No. 6 in defensive efficiency and No. 2 overall on KenPom. I'll instead lean to the more proven commodities in my recommendations below.
College Basketball DFS Picks for Monday, November 3
Without further delay, let's jump into my favorite plays on the Monday college basketball slate.
College Basketball DFS Top Players
Yaxel Lendeborg, F, Michigan ($9,500)
Lendeborg was third in the country in rebounding (11.4 rpg) last year at UAB and already appears to be carrying that momentum to his new home in the Big Ten. He had 31 points and 12 rebounds in an exhibition against Cincinnati, and 6-9 forward followed it up with a 25-point, 10-rebound effort against St. John's, who has esteemed big man Zuby Ejiofor patrolling the paint. Oakland represents a far less difficult test, and while the Golden Grizzlies play at a slow tempo, Greg Kampe's squad was outside the KenPom top-200 in defensive efficiency last season and checked in at No. 314 in defensive rebounding rate. Even in a blowout, Lendeborg should feast in the minutes given. Pair him with point guard Elliot Cadeau ($7,300) for a formidable stack.
Bryce Hopkins, G/F, St. John's ($8,000)
Hopkins is finally healthy and in his fifth collegiate season, and he's already had two notable exhibition games to shake off any rust. He came off the bench (but played starter minutes) against Towson, producing a 13/6/4 line, adding three steals and a block. Hopkins then entered the starting five against Michigan, logging 13 points and nine rebounds in the OT loss. Quinnipiac plays at a top-15 tempo (per KenPom), so St. John's has the highest implied total on the slate. Established big man Zuby Ejiofor ($9,300) is in play too, but Hopkins gives you a price break, could steal rebounds from Ejiofor and has a higher scoring ceiling. He also gives you dual-position eligibility for more lineup flexibility.
Joseph Tugler, F, Houston ($7,200)
Tugler dealt with a foot injury this offseason, but returned to serve as the leading scorer (17 points) in an Oct. 26 exhibition against Mississippi State, while also chipping in seven rebounds, two assists and two blocks. He shares a frontcourt with five-star freshman Chris Cenac ($9,200) but I'll taken the veteran here who has already established elite per-minute production (and comes at a $2k discount). Tugler and the Cougars face a Lehigh team that struggled to score in the paint and rebound (especially offensively) in 2024-25.
Middle Tier
Motiejus Krivas, F, Arizona ($6,200)
Krivas is one of two players to start both exhibition games for the Wildcats and appears to be a good pivot from the potentially-overpriced freshman. He had seven points and nine rebounds in only 10 minutes against D2 Embry-Riddle, but more importantly, had 11 points and 17 rebounds in 32 minutes before fouling out Oct. 18 against St. Mary's -- the data there should be more reflective of the projected Arizona roles. Florida might have one of the best frontcourts in the country, and that, along with foul trouble, are concerns (making Krivas perhaps better-suited for GPPs). But the Gators also are projected to play at a top-40 tempo, and the game should be relatively close.
Oziyah Sellers, G, St. John's ($5,400)
Sellers is set to serve as the primary point guard for Rick Pitino and is really the only St. John's option who is moderately priced. His exhibition box score against Michigan was troubling, as he only played eight minutes due to foul trouble. But Sellers started both exhibition contests, and you want the man with the ball in his hands against an opponent in Quinnipac that's projected to have a top-15 tempo rating (per KenPom) after finishing 14th last year under the same coach.
College Basketball DFS Value Plays
David Mirkovic, F, Illinois ($3,900)
This one is a bit dependent on the availability of Tomislav Ivisic, who played in a limited basis in a closed scrimmage against Florida. If Ivisic is limited again, Mirkovic looks like a starter after playing in the ABA league as a 19-year-old in 2024-25, where he put up 8.6 points and 6.4 rebounds. In the aforementioned exhibition against Illinois State, Mirkovic led the Illini in minutes played (30), scoring (19) and rebounding (14), in addition to tying Kylan Boswell with a team-high six assists. He also seems to have passed the eye test in the later scrimmage against a much tougher Florida team.
Kanaan Carlyle, G, FAU ($3,900)
Carlyle started FAU's exhibition game Thursday against Florida Tech, attempting the most shots (14) and playing the most minutes (25). He also led the squad with six assists, due at least likely in part to the fact that starting point guard Niccolo Moretti was held out with an ankle injury. If Moretti isn't listed in the posted starting five Monday, then Carlyle is a smash play. But at this price, he should see plenty of time to hit value regardless. Despite the "power" conference opponent, the Boston College defense isn't anything to write home about.
Dorian McMillian, G, Jackson State ($4,000)
After averaging 10.2 points and 4.3 rebounds in his freshman season at Jackson State, McMillian picked up right where he left off to open exhibition play, logging 23 points on 6-of-16 shooting in a 10-point loss to Southern Miss. Daeshun Ruffin ($5,700) led the way with 25 in that contest, but McMillian gets you a price break in an up-tempo matchup against a new-look Illini roster.
Alton Hamilton, F, Eastern Washington ($3,000)
Hamilton enters his junior year with the Eagles after two seasons with NAIA Lewis-Clark State. He averaged a double-double in his sophomore season en route to All-American honors. Eastern Washington did play an exhibition against Nevada, so we have some data. Hamilton started that game, played 26 minutes (second-most on the team) and went on to log eight points and eight rebounds, along with a block. He registered four fouls as well. UCLA is one of the tougher matchups in fantasy due to pace and defensive efficiency, but at minimum price, Hamilton is a shoe-in for 3-4x.
Pro Tip: RotoWire doesn't get exhibition stats from our stats provider, but they're still out there on many team websites. Just Google "[team] + men's basketball schedule" and it's often available. Finding these box scores, especially from smaller schools, is often key to discovering DFS value early in the season.
