North Carolina vs Stanford Prediction 1/18/25 College Basketball Picks Today

The Stanford Cardinal and the North Carolina Tar Heels meet Saturday in college basketball action from Dean Smith Center. Here’s a North Carolina vs Stanford prediction. We will look at this from a betting perspective and determine the best North Carolina vs Stanford pick.

Stanford Cardinal Betting Preview

Stanford’s season kicked off on a great clip, but since late November the team has been through some choppy spurts in the record column. The Cardinal hit a win streak in their first six games versus Denver, Cal State Fullerton, Northern Arizona, UC Davis, Norfolk State and Santa Clara. After losses to Grand Canyon and Cal Poly, Stanford got back to it with wins over Utah Valley, California and Merrimack. Since then it’s been a spotty 2-4 run for the Cardinal. The wins in that time have come versus Virginia Tech and Virginia. Otherwise it’s been losses to Oregon, Clemson, Pittsburgh and Wake Forest in that time for an 11-6 overall record so far.

In the Wake Forest matchup back on Wednesday, the Cardinal came out of the first half sporting a 35-33 edge. Stanford was blitzed in the second half with a 47-32 run, resulting in an 80-67 loss in the end. The Cardinal’s top scorer was Oziyah Sellers with 16 points and two turnovers in 36 minutes. Jaylen Blakes added 15 points with seven assists and one rebound. Maxime Raynaud added 14 points with 11 rebounds and two assists for a double-double, while Ryan Agarwal put up 14 points and five rebounds in 32 minutes of work on the floor.

North Carolina Tar Heels Betting Preview

Over on the Tar Heels’ side, they’ve had some bumps in the road this year but overall they’ve had more steady stretches than spotty ones. North Carolina opened with a 4-1 run featuring a loss to Kansas among wins over Elon, American, Hawaii and Dayton. After losses to Auburn, Michigan State and Alabama in the next three, the Tar Heels beat Georgia Tech, La Salle, UCLA and Campbell with a lone loss to Florida in the next quintet. Following another loss to Louisville that kicked off the calendar year, the Tar Heels have since taken wins over Notre Dame, SMU, NC State and California, resulting in a 12-6 overall record through 18 games so far this year.

Matched up against California in their Wednesday outing, the Tar Heels emerged from the locker room with a comfortable 39-29 edge. North Carolina got even better from there on a 40-24 run and powered out the win 79-53 in the end. Ian Jackson was the top team scorer with his 20 points, seven boards, one assist and one steal. Elliot Cadeau put up 15 points with three rebounds and three assists. Seth Trimble led the bench players on 12 points with six rebounds.

Why the North Carolina Tar Heels will win

• North Carolina has won each of its last 20 day games at Dean E. Smith Center.
• Stanford has lost each of its last three road games.
• North Carolina has won the first half in each of its last eight games at Dean E. Smith Center against non-AP-ranked opponents.

Why the Stanford Cardinal will win

• Stanford has won three of its last four day games against the Atlantic Coast Conference.
• Stanford has won the first half in six of its last seven day games against non-AP-ranked opponents.

North Carolina vs Stanford Prediction

I’ll stick with the Tar Heels. North Carolina didn’t have too many issues with a struggling California team in their last outing, shooting a nice 47.7 percent from the floor with a 45-33 rebounding edge along the way. North Carolina held the Bears to just 34.8 percent shooting on the other side with just 3-of-25 (12 percent) from 3-point range in a nice defensive effort. The Tar Heels have been a pretty consistent scoring team so far this year. They’ve got 68 or more points in 17 of 18 games, with the outlier being 63 points in a win over rival NC State.

As for Stanford, they gave up quite a bit on defense to Wake Forest in their latest loss, surrendering 50 percent shooting from the field with a 30-28 rebounding disadvantage. The Cardinal shot fairly well themselves (44.4 percent), but the 13 turnovers didn’t help matters. Stanford hasn’t been scoring badly either, with 67 or more points in five straight games. They’ll need quite a bit more offense in order to keep up with North Carolina here, though.