March Madness Betting: Louisville vs California

Rick Pitino’s number 9 seeded Louisville Cardinals are looking to make a nice run in the tournament and considering they beat number one seed Syracuse twice this season, there is no doubt they have the team to do it. They will face the number 8 seed in the south region, the California Golden Bears.

The college basketball odd makers consider this game a tossup as they have this game listed as a pick’em. So when you are betting on this game you don’t have to worry about a point spread, if your team wins you win.

:
Louisville Cardinals PK
California Golden Bears PK
Game Time: 9:55 EST
TV: CBS

The Golden Bears opened as 1½ point favorites but thanks to the Louisville faithful and some heavy wise guy action has bet the game down to a pick’em.

Rick Pitino has the Cardinals using an opportunistic defense, they don’t shut down teams but they focus attention on owning the glass and forcing turnovers; limiting second chance shots and forcing their opponents into bad decisions, they can capitalize with the 37th ranked offense. The Cardinals have a 6.7 point differential so the strategy has worked well this season. Their leading scorer is second year power Samardo Samuals (15.3 PPG), who if he continues his development should go in the late 1st or early second round of the 2011 draft.

The California Golden Bears will be without starting forward Omondi Amoke who has been suspended indefinitely for violating an undisclosed team rule. Amoke wasn’t a dominant part of the Bears 26th ranked offense but he pulled in 4.6 boards a game and wasn’t afraid to do the dirty work for Cal. He is a strong body and a good defender that will force Coach Mike Montgomery to make some tough decisions about how to defend Samardo Samuals. Without Amoke, Montgomery will have one less body to rotate onto Samuals, which could put one of his scorers in foul trouble early.

The Cardinals haven’t been good to bettors this year as they are 10-17 against the college basketball spread; conversely, California went 19-13 ATS. We could look deeper into the ATS data but considering the line is a pick it won’t matter, this one is just pick it to win it. The Golden Bears had won six straight before losing to Washington in the Pac10 tourney, Louisville is only 6-4 in their past ten but six wins in the Big East this year trumps a 6 game streak in the Pac10.

The loss of Amoke and the strength of competition that Louisville has had to play compared to California is enough to make me put my money behind Louisville for the Win.