College basketball best bets today

For those who feel like there are too many college basketball games and get a little bit overwhelmed, Friday is the day for you. There are exactly eight games in Division I college hoops tonight. We still manage to have seven* different conferences – MAC, MAAC, Big Ten, A-10, WAC, Pac-12, Sun Belt – in action, but there are only nine* games, so college basketball best bets for today are a little tough to find.

(Edit: As a reader pointed out, Arkansas State/Louisiana will play tonight after PPD last night, so there are nine games and seven conferences in action)

 

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Don’t fret if you like the voluminous CBB cards and lots of games to handicap. There are 154 games tomorrow.

Check the latest college basketball odds for legal U.S. sportsbooks across the country and our Vegas odds if you share a state with us here at VSiN. Also, give the college basketball betting splits a look for these or any other college basketball games today have your interest. Check out the Tracking Sheet for this season’s results and our college basketball home page for more CBB content.

Here is one best bet for Friday.

Stanford Cardinal at Cal Golden Bears (-2.5, 150.5)

10 p.m. ET

One of the eight games for tonight made the cut and it is the matchup between Stanford and Cal. Stanford has battled the injury bug recently, as point guard Jared Bynum (8.3 PPG, 6.4 APG) has missed the last four games and Spencer Jones (12 PPG, 4 RPG) missed the loss to Washington State, but returned with a vengeance, dropping 30 on Washington last time out.

Hopefully Bynum is back, but even if he isn’t, this Cardinal crew has scored at least 1.018 points per possession in seven of their eight conference games. I don’t expect their 48% success rate from 3 to continue, but they are shooting 40% for the season and face a Cal team that ranks 311th in 3P% defense this season. The Trees have exceeded 1.1 PPP three times already in conference play.

Cal plays at the opposition’s tempo. In their eight conference games, they’ve played to 82 (Arizona), 88 (Arizona State), 71 (USC), 64 (UCLA), 66 (Colorado), 71 (Oregon), 70 (Washington), and 73 (Wazzu OT) possessions. Stanford is a top-100 team in adjusted tempo and Cal hasn’t really found that identity yet under first-year head coach Mark Madsen, so they just fall into whatever the opponent wants.

That should bump the tempo a bit for this one. Over the last six games, Cal has scored at least 1.026 PPP, but they’ve allowed at least 1.028 PPP in six of their eight conference clashes. Cal has 3P% issues on defense, but so does Stanford, as opponents are firing away at 35.3%. Both teams have a lot of go-to scorers and have played several high-scoring games of late.

Stanford’s last five games have ended with an average of 166 points, while Cal’s last five have ended with 148.8, including the super slow-paced UCLA grind. The last one against Wazzu did go to OT, but Cal had 1.11 PPP and Wazzu had 1.028, so the teams were scoring.

Pick: Over 150.5

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