College Basketball Odds: Stanford vs. California prediction, pick, how to watch – 1/6/2023

01/06/2023 05:56 PM

The Stanford Cardinal take on the California Golden Bears. Our college basketball odds series has our Stanford California prediction and pick. Find out how to watch Stanford California. This is a game in which a betting decision hinges more on the less trustworthy team, not the more trustworthy team, because neither Stanford nor California have earned any trust, except in a negative way. If you have bet against these teams, you have done really well this season. If you have bet for them, you have fared poorly. Stanford is 0-4 in the Pac-12. The Cardinal have lost three Pac-12 home games before the first full weekend of the new year. They have a 5-9 overall record. They blew a late five-point lead at home against Colorado. A program which has not made the NCAA Tournament since 2014 is adrift and wayward, going absolutely nowhere and creating a crisis for head coach Jerod Haase, who is fully and firmly on the hot seat. Stanford is favored by nearly nine points. What does that tell you about this game, and what does that tell you about Cal? The Golden Bears are 2-13 through 15 games. Coach Mark Fox has had a miserable season for a program which has hit rock bottom. Yet, one of Cal’s two wins came against Colorado, meaning the Golden Bears are not winless in Pac-12 play. They’re actually ahead of Stanford in the conference standings. This is a game between bad teams. Picking a loser is really the more precise challenge here, as opposed to picking the winner. Here are the Stanford-California college basketball odds, courtesy of FanDuel: College Basketball Odds: Stanford-California Odds Stanford Cardinal: -8.5 (-118) California Golden Bears: +8.5 (-104) Over: 122.5 (-110) Under: 122.5 (-110) How To Watch Stanford vs. California TV: ESPNU Stream: ESPN+ Time: 9:00 p.m. ET, 6:00 p.m. PT *Watch Stanford-California LIVE with fuboTV (Click for free trial)* Why Stanford Could Cover The Spread There’s obviously nothing one should like or trust about Stanford. The whole case for the Cardinal covering the spread is simply that Cal is an atrocious team. The Golden Bears are 2-13 and can be relied on to not shoot well, not score a bunch, and not get stronger in the second half. Cal has lost 10 of its 13 games by eight points or more. It’s not as though this team has lost a ton of close games or games which could have gone either way. This team has been soundly beaten on a regular basis. Cal games do not generally go down to the wire. Some bad teams — or teams with bad records — are robustly competitive and make the opposition sweat, but Cal is not that kind of bad team. This is a bad team which generally is worse than its opponents by a considerable margin. A Stanford team desperate for its first Pac-12 victory of the season (in five tries) should be able to play with enough urgency and passion to get the job done and finally get a conference win. Why California Could Cover The Spread Stanford falters late in games. The Cardinal let a possible win against Colorado slip away in the final four minutes. A 64-59 lead turned into a loss. The Cardinal couldn’t catch Utah late in that home-court loss last week. Stanford couldn’t make timely plays in a close loss to Arizona State one month ago. Stanford hasn’t won one game decided by fewer than 10 points this season, and none of the Cardinal’s wins came against particularly good teams, either. One other note about Cal: As awful as the Golden Bears have admittedly been this season, they have won two of their last three games. Their win over Colorado featured an 80-point explosion. The Bears shot 58 percent from the field, over 53 percent from 3-point range. That wasn’t representative of their season, but it showed this team is capable of being a lot better than how it played in the first 12 games of the season, which it lost. Just a decent shooting game from Cal should be enough to win. Final Stanford-California Prediction & Pick Stanford probably wins outright, but the Cardinal are not to be trusted to blow the doors off Cal. The fact that this is a rivalry game probably gives the Bears enough energy to keep it close. Final Stanford-California Prediction & Pick: California +8.5 The post College Basketball Odds: Stanford vs. California prediction, pick, how to watch – 1/6/2023 appeared first on ClutchPoints.