Sam Houston State vs Cal Baptist Pick – Basketball Predictions & Odds 2/23/23

The California Baptist Lancers and the Sam Houston State Bearkats meet Thursday in college basketball action from Johnson Coliseum. Cal Baptist sits at 15-12 so far this year. The Lancers beat Seattle in their last game. As for Sam Houston, they’re 20-6 on the season following a win over Tarleton State. Check back all season long for free college basketball picks at Sports Chat Place.

Cal Baptist Lancers 

California Baptist opened up the year on a 12-8 stretch. In the seven games since, the Lancers have gone 3-4 with losses to UTRGV, Southern Utah, Abilene Christian and Utah Valley. The wins came versus TX-Arlington, West Coast Baptist and Seattle otherwise. 

In the Seattle matchup last Wednesday, the Lancers managed a 41-28 edge in the first half. California Baptist scored another 43 points in the second and cruised to the win 84-63. Both Hunter Goodrick and Tre Armstrong scored 15 points each to lead the team. 

Sam Houston State Bearkats 

Over on the Sam Houston side, they managed to go 14-5 across their first 19 outings of the year. The Bearkats are 6-1 in their last seven with wins over UTRGV, Seattle, UTRGV again, Abilene Christian, TX-Arlington and Tarleton State. 

Matched up against Tarleton State on Saturday, the Bearkats took a 34-27 lead into the locker room. Sam Houston State was outscored 32-30 from there but still won 64-59. Donte Powers and Cameron Huefner each posted 20 points to lead the way. 

ANDREW’S FREE PICK 

I’ll probably stick with Sam Houston State here. The Bearkats haven’t exactly been lighting up the scoreboard lately—they’ve been at 67 points or below in five of their last six games. That said, Sam Houston has lost just one game since January 12 and they’re playing very well these days. As for Cal Baptist, they’ve hit 71 or more points in four of the last five games but it won’t be so easy to put up points in this one. I like the Bearkats to control this one the whole way as they power out a cover.