Washington State vs California 1/11/23 College Basketball Picks, Predictions, Odds

The Cal Golden Bears and the Washington State Cougars meet in college basketball action from Friel Court on Wednesday night.

The Cal Golden Bears will look to build on back-to-back wins after a 92-70 win over Stanford last time out. Devin Askew leads the Golden Bears in scoring with 16.1 PPG and 2.7 APG while Lars Thiemann has 11.6 PPG with a team-high 6.1 RPG to lead the Golden Bears on the glass and DeJuan Clayton has 13.7 PPG in three games as the only other double-digit scorer for Cal up to this point in the season. Joel Brown also has a team-high 2.9 APG as well to lead Cal in assists this season. As a team, Cal is averaging 61.5 PPG on 42.5% shooting from the field, 31.4% from three and 74.5% from the foul line this season.

The Washington State Cougars will look to build on their 74-61 win over Arizona last time out. TJ Bamba leads the Cougars in scoring with 15.1 PPG along with 4.1 RPG while Mouhamed Gueye has 14 PPG with a team-high 8.8 RPG to lead the Cougars on the glass this season. Jabe Mullins has 12.4 PPG while Justin Powell has 10.5 PPG with 3.6 RPG and a team-high 3.2 APG to lead the Cougars in assists while also rounding out the group of double-digit scorers for Washington State so far this season. As a team, Washington State is averaging 69.7 PPG on 43.6% shooting from the field, 36.7% from three and 72.9% from the foul line this season.

Cal is 4-1 ATS in their last 5 games overall and 4-0 ATS in their last 4 road games against a team with a winning home record while the under is 4-1 in their last 5 games against a team with a losing record. Washington State is 1-7 ATS in their last 8 games against a team with alosing record and 1-6 ATS in their last 7 games against a team with a winning percentage below .400 while the over is 3-0-1 in their last 4 games against a team with a losing record.

I get the case to be made for either side in this game, but I’m sticking with the Golden Bears and the points here. Both teams are coming off of massive upsets as double-digit underdogs, but that to me doesn’t warrant flipping around and making Washington State a double-digit favorite. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t love backing Cal as much as the next person, but the Golden Bears have started to play well and I think they can keep this to within an 8-9 point game. Give me the points with Cal here.