This article is part of our DFS College Basketball series.
DraftKings has a 12-game main slate Wednesday evening, with $10,000 in total prizes up for grabs, including the standard $2,000 to the overall winner. There is a nightcap slate as well, but only a $500 first-place prize, paired with me being a touch under the weather, and I'm going to focus my energy on the main slate only this time.
Alabama-Auburn leads the way with a 163.0 point total, while Duke-Notre Dame and UCLA-Stanford are our two low spots at 134.5 and 135.0, respectively. With the slate being as large as it is, it seems prudent to just write those games off.
Top Players
Judah Mintz, G, Syracuse ($8,400)
Mintz let me down over the weekend, but this looks like a spot to go right back to the well, perhaps benefiting from others being turned off by his last outing. Mintz has at least six assists in three straight and four of five, and we know he's the Orange's leading scoring threat too. The matchup looks terrific. Louisville doesn't play slow (74th per KenPom), and the Cardinals don't defend, ranking 216th in efficiency. Syracuse is happy to run, ranking 39th in pace, which will give Mintz plenty of chances to flirt with a 40 fantasy point evening.
Tolu Smith, F, Mississippi State ($8,100)
I actually like both sides of this matchup, as Georgia big Russel Tchewa has shown some flashes of late and should be plenty motivated to bang with Smith here. As an anchor, I'm taking Smith and his rebounding stability to give a solid foundation. He's averaging 16.7 points and 8.4 rebounds over his last eight and hasn't scored less than nine in that stretch while being under seven rebounds just once. It has yielded a 30.2 percent usage rate, and he's been able to keep his fouls in check as well. Georgia also allows offensive rebounds at a 30.8 percent clip. I like Smith's chances for a double-double here, and if he can get offensive, there's an immense ceiling.
Middle Tier
Mark Mitchell, F, Duke ($6,800)
Okay, so maybe I'm not ignoring this game. The middle tier of forwards is pretty gross, and there are ample guards in the $5,000-$6,000 range to where we can fit someone of Mitchell's price into our builds. The question I pose is would you rather have MItchell, or Tennessee's Josiah-Jordan James at the same price? Tennessee is expected to score roughly nine points more than the Blue Devils, but James' price has risen $1,300 since the weekend thanks to a 23-point outing. The thing is, he hadn't scored in double-digits in 2024 prior and had only six total points in his previous four games. I don't want to chase past performances, but Mitchell absolutely shredded Notre Dame previously for 23 points and 14 rebounds, a cool 45.5 DKP. Notre Dame limited Kyle Filipowski there, which I don't think repeats, but it's also possible to probable they just can't match up with Mitchell.
Tre Donaldson, G, Auburn ($5,200)
Donaldson has started the last three games over Aden Holloway, and the returns have been decent enough to merit attention in this paced-up matchup. He's scored in double digits once, grabbed seven boards once and twice has at least five assists and five total steals in that stretch. Again, tempo here is going to allow Donaldson to find paths to production. He's a cheap "in" to this highly-targetable game.
Bargain Options
Nick Martinelli, F, Northwestern ($4,800)
Over his last 10 games, Martinelli has averaged 23.0 minutes, a 17.3 percent usage rate, producing 7.3 points and 3.9 rebounds nightly. Elite? Of course not. Stable? It looks to be. He's been under 10 DKP just once and over 20 DKP equally once, so we see there's a fixed outcome at stake here. While it's not elite, it's not craterous. Northwestern's fair 73.5 point total does nothing to help or hurt.
Benny Gealer, G, Stanford ($4,100)
So, forget everything I said in the introduction about ignoring these low-scoring games. It's February, team's rotations are getting tighter and bargains, by definition a sub-$5,000 player, are drying up mightily. There are a handful of starters in that price range, but they don't actually play starter minutes. Gealer is only an option if Kanaan Carlyle is ruled out, and with the West Coast nature of this game, we won't likely know early enough to have an ideal pivot. So it's risky as can be. Gealer flashed in his weekend start however, posting 22.75 DKP thanks largely to nine assists. That's not going to happen here even if he starts, with UCLA's defense better and playing at a slower tempo than Arizona's. At this price, we really just need him to get us a double-digit fantasy return.
