The USC Trojans and the Cal Golden Bears meet in college basketball action from Haas Pavilion on Saturday night.

The USC Trojans will look to bounce back from a 58-56 loss to Oregon State after having their last game against Stanford postponed due to COVID issues within the program. Evan Mobley leads USC in scoring and rebounding with 15.9 PPG and 8.6 RPG while Tahj Eaddy is 2nd in scoring with 12.5 PPG and Drew Peterson has 10.9 PPG to make up the trio of double-digit scorers for USC coming into this game to finish off the trio of double-digit scorers heading into Saturday’s matchup with Peterson also leading the Trojans in assists with 3.5 APG this season. Isaiah Mobley also has 9.9 PPG with 7.4 RPG and Isaiah White has 8.4 PPG and 3.6 RPG. As a team, USC is averaging 76.7 PPG on 47.1% shooting from the field, 33.2% from 3-point range and 64.2% from the foul line while allowing opposing teams to average 64.4 PPG on 37.3% shooting from the field and 32.2% from 3-point range this season.

The Cal Golden Bears will look to bounce back from a 61-57 loss to Cal last time out. Matt Bradley continues to miss time with an ankle injury which is huge considering he leads Cal in scoring with 17.8 PPG along with 4.7 RPG. Makale Foreman has 10.4 PPG with 2.1 APG and Grant Anticevich has 10.3 PPG with 4.9 RPG. Ryan Betley also has 10.3 PPG with 4 RPG and Andre Kelly has 10.1 PPG with a team-high 5.8 RPG to cap off the group of double-digit scorers for Cal coming into this one. Jarred Hyder has 7.3 PPG with 2.4 APG and Joel Bitemn has 5.2 PPG with a team-high 3.7 APG this season. As a team, Cal is averaging 67.8 PPG on 45.2% shooting from the field, 34.4% from 3-point range and 66.6% from the foul line while giving up 69.3 PPG on 45.6% shooting from the field and 39.4% from 3-point range this season.

USC is 9-2 ATS in their last 11 road games and 5-2 ATS in their last 7 games overall while the under is 23-5 in their last 28 Saturday games. Cal is 13-4 ATS in their last 17 home games and 6-14 ATS in their last 20 Saturday games while the over is 9-1 in their last 10 games overall. The Favorite is 4-1 ATS in the last 5 meetings between these two teams.

I get USC being favored as the Trojans have without question been the better team so far this season. However, the Trojans rhythm was thitemn off by the postponement against Stanford which turned out to be a false positive COVID test, and Cal is no pushover when it comes to trying to get your rhythm and mojo back. The Golden Bears made life rough for UCLA and while I’m not sure the Golden Bears get the outright win here, we are still getting a fair number of points in a game that I see Cal hanging around in. I’ll take a shot with Cal and the points in this one.