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It's time to continue our College Basketball odds series with a Stanford-Pitt prediction and pick. Find out how to watch Stanford-Pitt.
This is one of the weirder conference games you will see on the Saturday schedule in college basketball. It will take some getting used to. Stanford, from the San Francisco Bay Area, goes to the Steel City to face the Pittsburgh Panthers. It's a conference game? Yes. It's the new-look ACC. What is even weirder is that Stanford and Pitt are part of a four-team, two-game rotation this week on the ACC schedule. Earlier this week, Stanford visited Clemson and Pitt hosted Cal. Now the teams will criss-cross and play the other ones, with Clemson and Pitt hosting. Wouldn't it naturally make sense for the ACC to have travel partners Stanford and Cal go to a pair of ACC schools which are closer to each other, such as Clemson and Miami (South) or Pittsburgh and Boston College (North)? Having Stanford fly from Clemson to Pittsburgh seems odd, and having Cal fly from Pittsburgh to Clemson is just as odd. One has to wonder if the lines below are accounting for the long travel Stanford will be dealing with this week. It will be interesting to see if the Cardinal have the legs and the fitness for a full 40 minutes on the road in the ACC.
Here are the Stanford-Pitt College Basketball Odds, courtesy of FanDuel
College Basketball Odds: Stanford-Pitt Odds
Stanford: +11.5 (-110)
Moneyline: +520
Pitt: -11.5 (-110)
Moneyline: -750
Over: 148.5 (-110)
Under: 148.5 (-110)
How to Watch Stanford vs Pitt
Time: 6:30 p.m. ET/3:30 p.m. PT
TV: ESPN2
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Why Stanford Will Cover The Spread/Win
Stanford couldn't keep up with Clemson for the full 40 minutes earlier this week, but the game was legitimately competitive midway through the second half. Stanford played the first half on even terms against a Clemson team which beat Kentucky earlier this season and is probably better than Pitt in a head-to-head comparison. Stanford's problem wasn't that it failed to show up; it just failed to complete the 40-minute race. Stanford played 25 solid minutes. It's all about playing those other 15 minutes reasonably well. Given that the spread is a double-digit number, Stanford just has to play this game reasonably close to cover.
Pitt did beat Cal earlier this week, but the Panthers trailed at halftime and played a poor first half. If Pitt plays another poor first half, Stanford is good enough to gain an outright lead at halftime. That might not mean Stanford will win the game, but if that does happen, it means it's very likely that Stanford will cover 11.5 points.
Why Pitt Will Cover The Spread/Win
Pitt was down several points to Cal in the first half and rallied to not only win, but prevail by 12 points. If you are convinced that Stanford will cover the 11.5-point spread, think twice. Pittsburgh showed against Cal that it can really turn on the jets and score in bunches after a slow start. You really don't want to give Stanford — the worse team in this matchup — the benefit of the doubt after seeing how Pitt turned things around against Cal the other day.
Final Stanford-Pitt Prediction & Pick
Our lean is to Stanford, but as we said above, trusting the inferior team in a game is always very risky. Pass.
Final Stanford-Pitt Prediction & Pick: Stanford +11.5
