Free Pick | NCAA | Saturday | Jan. 3

Nelly’s is on a roll in late season football with an 8-0 record in our last eight football picks – sweeping our NFL picks last Sunday and winning our last five bowl picks!

We’re also 4-1 in our last five in college basketball, while we’ve gone 9-3 since Dec. 1 in the NFL!

Check out basketball and football offers this weekend with Nelly’s!

#687 UC Santa Barbara +2 over CS Northridge 3:00 PM CT

The Gauchos won 21 games last season and this year’s team is on a similar pace for Joe Pasternack with a 9-5 start. Santa Barbara took its first loss in Big West play on Thursday however to open 2026 0-1. This year’s team is a strong shooting group hitting nearly 39 percent from 3-point range and over 79 percent from the free throw line, numbers that are elite nationally, not just in the Big West. The non-conference defeats mostly came in competitive games against decent competition and Santa Barbara has two top 200 wins, including a borderline top 100 win away from home. Miro Little’s absence has mirrored a recent stretch of marginal play with the Gauchos 2-3 in his absence, but Santa Barbara won 78-72 when these teams met in the Big West tournament last March after Northridge won the regular season meetings. The Matadors play at an ultra-fast pace of play and that can provide some inconsistency with an 8-7 start to the season including a 1-2 mark in Big West play. Andy Newman’s team won 22 games last season for a breakthrough campaign, going 14-6 in Big West play. This year’s team has much worse numbers on both sides of the ball in the early going, however. Northridge is 6-0 at home but there have been a few narrow results with only two top 250 wins at home, one of which came by two points. Northridge is the far worse shooting team in this matchup, and the Matadors are struggling with turnovers on both sides of the ball as well.