It's time to continue our College Basketball odds series with an NC State-Stanford prediction and pick. Find out how to watch NC State Stanford.
The Stanford Cardinal fell short on Wednesday night in a home game they sorely needed. If Stanford — on the very wrong side of the NCAA Tournament bubble — was going to have any real chance of making a run at an at-large bid to the Big Dance — it needed to start winning home games versus the other good teams in the ACC. Stanford has lost to Pittsburgh, Clemson, and SMU so far this season. The Cardinal really needed to beat Wake Forest — a team clearly ahead of the Trees in the bubble pecking order — to change the equation regarding the ACC bubble. Not being able to do that really hurts Stanford, which has to win five or six games in a row if it wants to become a realistic bubble candidate for an at-large tournament berth. In most years, a team with a road win at North Carolina would be in decent position on the NCAA Tournament bubble, but this is not a normal year. North Carolina isn't very good, so a win over the Tar Heels doesn't carry the level of value it normally would contain. Stanford needs to get on a roll and stay hot for three weeks. Then the Trees' bubble position could be re-evaluated.
NC State: +6.5 (-104)
Moneyline: +220
Stanford: -6.5 (-118)
Moneyline: -275
Over: 138.5 (-110)
Under: 138.5 (-110)
Time: 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT
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TV: ACC Network
The Wolfpack might not be a good team, but Stanford just did lose at home to Wake Forest, a discouraging development for the Cardinal. Stanford has not collapsed or imploded this season, but neither has Stanford gotten on a big-time roll and stayed locked in for a long period of time. If Stanford does play well, it seems to last for just two or three games, nothing longer. Stanford's inability to string together a prolonged period of success and high-quality basketball is a really good reason to take NC State plus the points in this game.
Stanford just lost to Wake Forest. That might seem to be a reason to pick against Stanford, not for the Cardinal, but the reason why it's a pro-Stanford talking point is simple: Stanford will not lose back-to-back home games. More precisely, Stanford won't lose back-to-back home games with NC State being one of those two games. Coach Kyle Smith is going to get this program back to where it was 15 years ago. He is not going to lose to a bad NC State team whose offense has been atrocious for most of the season and was typically flat a few nights ago in a loss to Cal in Berkeley. NC State is going nowhere. Stanford is vastly superior to the Wolfpack in a head-to-head comparison. The spread here, which was actually 4.5 points when the line opened, is still generous toward NC State. One could make the case the spread should be 8.5, not 6.5.
Stanford is not going to lose consecutive games at home. Cal covered the spread against North Carolina State a few days ago in the San Francisco Bay Area. If Cal can do it, Stanford — a better team than Cal — should not have a problem doing the same. Take Stanford here.
