Portland vs. Gonzaga prediction, odds, pick for College Basketball
01/02/2025 02:07 AM
It’s time to continue our College Basketball odds series with a Portland-Gonzaga prediction and pick. Find out how to watch Portland-Gonzaga.
The Gonzaga Bulldogs are a fascinating team to contemplate in college basketball this season. The metrics and the analytics love them, partly because they blew out Baylor by 38 points on opening night. If you crunch a lot of numbers and provide comparative statistics, Gonzaga looks like a top-tier team. However, the Zags have lost numerous close games this season, the latest one being against UCLA this past Saturday. Gonzaga has four losses and owns just that win over Baylor and a victory at San Diego State as its best results. Gonzaga has lost to Kentucky, West Virginia, UConn, and UCLA. The Zags have national championship potential, but they aren’t winning with the regularity one would expect of a national championship contender.
If Gonzaga is going to get a No. 4 seed at the 2025 NCAA Tournament — a seed which would give the Zags the possibility of a more favorable geographical placement and a better draw — GU will likely need to take a blowtorch to the West Coast Conference over the next two months. Gonzaga might not be able to afford more than one loss in conference play, certainly no more than two, if it wants to have any hope of getting a No. 4 seed. The caliber of opponents in the WCC won’t be great enough to lift Gonzaga’s resume to a substantial degree. Gonzaga has to avoid losses with regularity and hope that a dominant conference season can push its seeding higher. Had GU lost only twice, not four times, to this point in the season, the conversation would be very different surrounding this team.
The questions regarding Gonzaga’s overall ability are persisting because this team shockingly loses the plot at times, including against inferior opponents. Gonzaga led lowly Pepperdine by 18 points at halftime this past Monday night. That huge lead was sliced to just four points with two minutes left before GU stabilized and held on. Being tested like that against Pepperdine could shake Gonzaga. Mark Few needs to build back the confidence of his team.
Here are the Portland-Gonzaga College Basketball Odds, courtesy of FanDuel
College Basketball Odds: Portland-Gonzaga Odds
Portland: +34.5 (-110)
Moneyline: NA
Gonzaga: -34.5 (-110)
Moneyline: NA
Over: 160.5 (-115)
Under: 160.5 (-105)
How to Watch Portland vs. Gonzaga
Time: 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT
TV: ESPN Plus
*Watch college basketball LIVE with fuboTV (Get Access | Save $30)*
Why Portland Will Cover The Spread/Win
The spread is enormous, for one thing. Second, Gonzaga failed to cover the spread against Pepperdine on Monday night. Pepperdine outscored Gonzaga by 14 points in the first 18 minutes of that second half. If Gonzaga can’t hold things together, to the extent that it allows opponents to smash the Zags in extended sequences, Portland shouldn’t have too much of a problem covering the 34.5-point number. Gonzaga has potential, but that potential is not being realized at all right now.
Why Gonzaga Will Cover The Spread/Win
The Zags are still a really good team. They just haven’t finished close games against good competition. They can absolutely blow the doors off bad teams, especially at home. Here comes Portland, a team which is having a brutal season and which just got clobbered by Washington State, a team which is not nearly as good as Gonzaga.
Final Portland-Gonzaga Prediction & Pick
Our lean is to GU, but the spread is massive, and Gonzaga has not been especially consistent of late. Pass on this one.
Final Portland-Gonzaga Prediction & Pick: Gonzaga -34.5
The post Portland vs. Gonzaga prediction, odds, pick for College Basketball appeared first on ClutchPoints.
