NCAA College Basketball Picks: Washington State @ Arizona

Added on Jan 08, 2010 by Jack Thurman in

With NFL football betting come close to an end, we’ll have a greater focus on college basketball betting in the coming weeks. Not a huge slate of action on Friday night, but we do like a position in the Pac 10 matchup between Washington State and Arizona.

Washington State at Arizona
January 8, 7:30 PM Pacific

At first glance, Washington State’s record is much more impressive than Arizona. The Cougars are 11-3 SU on the year, but played a very weak non-conference schedule. Making things even more problematic, they didn’t have much luck when stepping up in class losing to the only decent teams they played early (Gonzaga and Kansas State). The Wildcats, meanwhile, weigh in at only 7-7 but played a much tougher non-conference schedule with games against BYU, UNLV, Vanderbilt, Colorado, Wisconsin and NC State. While Arizona may struggle somewhat on the Pac 10 road under coach Sean Miller we look for them to be a tough adversary on their home court for sports betting.

Washington State is only 4-7 ATS and they’ve struggled in the role of the underdog in recent years, currently on a 9-16 ATS run when getting points. Wildcats have a very balanced offensive attack, and while they’ve struggled some with their team defense in the early going they’ll be able to focus their efforts on WSU star Klay Thompson here. Arizona has dominated the series at home, with a 10-2 SU/9-3 ATS mark and have won and covered the last two meetings in Tuscon. They’re 3-1 SU/ATS overall during the last three years. Don’t expect a blowout, but we do expect that Arizona to win and cover–even if it takes a bit of ‘home cooking’ from the officials.

Bet Arizona -2′ over Washington State