posted February 22, 2008 at 20:30 in NCAA B Articles

The California Golden Bears travel to the Harvard of the West to take on the Cardinal. The last time these two teams met the Stanford Cardinal beat the Golden Bears by 5 points. That was in Berkeley. Because this game is at Stanford, I suspect that the BetUS against the spread line should fall somewhere around 7 or 7.5 points. Stanford, by the way, has gone an okay 6 and 4 against the BetUS spread in their last 10 games. The Golden Bears have gone a more modest 4 and 6 against the BetUS spread in their last 10 games.

Here are more trends:

The California Golden Bears are 5 and 3 against the spread in their 8 away games (where a spread was offered) so far this season.

The California Golden Bears are 11 and 10 against the spread in their 21 games (where a spread was offered) so far this season.

The Stanford Cardinal are 6 and 8 against the spread in their 14 home games (where a spread was offered) so far this season.

The Stanford Cardinal are 13 and 12 against the spread in their 25 games (where a spread was offered) so far this season.

This is definitely a rivalry game. The Golden Bears are not a bad team. A win versus a highly ranked team like the Stanford Cardinal would go a long way in getting the Bears into the NCAA Tournament.

Of course, beating the Cardinal straight-up and beating them against the BetUS spread are two very different things. The problem for the Golden Bears is that Stanford has probably the best front-court in all of college basketball. They are also as disciplined as any team in college basketball. That means that California does not have the luxury of waiting for the Cardinal to screw-up in this game.

The Golden Bears will have to play as well as they’ve played all season, as well as hoping that the Cardinal has an off-night shooting, which is unlikely, for them to have any chance of winning this game straight-up.

Unfortunately for California, I sort of believe that the same thing has to happen in order for them to have any chance of beating the predicted spread. Stanford will be playing their rivals at home ranked in the top-ten. Stanford believes that they should get the number one seed out West, not UCLA.

They will play like that on Sunday.

The predicted BetUS college basketball betting line is Stanford Cardinal – 7.5 against the spread at home versus the California Golden Bears.

I like the Cardinal to cover in this game.

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