PAC 10 Game of the Night - Cal Golden Bears vs. UCLA Bruins
by Mike Rose
PAC 10 sports betting offers up one of the games of the night on the college hardwood when Mike Montgomery and his California Golden Bears (16-4, 11-6 ATS) invades Pauley Pavilion to take on Ben Howland’s 18th ranked UCLA Bruins (15-4, 8-10 ATS). These teams saw a lot of each other to close out the 2007-08 season when the Bruins beat them by a point in their home finale, and then crushed them in the PAC 10 Tournament just six days later. Cal is 4-3 SU and ATS in its seven road/neutral court games for NCAAB bettors this season, while the Bruins own an impressive 10-2 SU mark in their own house but have cost their betting backers by churning out a losing 4-6 mark against the closing pointspread.
The host Bruins currently sit as 9.5-point favorites in this contest with a game ‘total’ of 139.5. Cal’s managed a 4-2 SU & ATS mark the six times it was tagged an underdog as a visitor this season with impressive outright wins at UNLV, Utah, Washington State, and Washington. Each club boasts a 5-2 SU mark in conference play.
The Golden Bears bounced back from their humiliating home defeat at the hands of the Oregon State Beavers as double-digit favorites with a 76-69 victory against the Oregon Ducks. However, the seven point victory saw Cal fail to cover the 13-point closing spread, and it proved to be the third straight pointspread loss for its betting backers. Guard Jerome Randle stood out on the stat sheet compiling a game high 22 points to go along with five assists. The Bears shot a blistering 67% from the field on 30-of-45 shooting, but they only won the battle of the boards by two (25/23)and turned it over 15 times compared to the Ducks 12. They’ll need to drastically cut down the turnovers tonight if they expect to pull the shocker in Pauley.
After almost letting their game against Washington State get away from them in the second half, the Bruins couldn’t hold onto their one-point halftime lead and ended up losing by an 86-75 final count to close out their trip to the state of Washington last Saturday. The loss was the second suffered by the Bruins in their last three games, but only tonight’s opponent managed to upend the Huskies on their own floor this year. Josh Shipp tallied 25 of the Bruins 75 point output, but Darren Collison was the only other Bruin to post a double-digit mark in the road defeat.
UCLA is 8-2 SU and 6-4 ATS the L/10 times it’s faced in state rival Cal. That said; the Golden Bears are 5-2 ATS their L/7 trips to Pauley Pavilion and the road team has cashed for CBB bettors in 5 of the L/6 meetings. This series has also been higher scoring of late with the ‘over’ cashing in 4 of the L/5 battles, and in each of the L/5 times they squared off at UCLA.
Can the Golden Bears build upon their impressive mark as a road underdog, or will the Bruins continue its dominance of the boys from Berkeley? Once you think you got the pointspread winner of this game pegged, login to your BetUS Sportsbook account and put your money where your mouth is!
