Five times this season, an ACC team has traveled from the Eastern Time Zone to play Stanford or Cal on a Wednesday night. Three times, those games have tipped at 8:00 PM PST. Twice, the tip came at 6:00 PM PST. There have been no weeknight ACC games in Palo Alto or Berkeley on nights other than Wednesday night.
This is a small sample. It’s a very, very small sample. It’s also not overwhelmingly indicative of a trend. Syracuse, Miami, Virginia Tech, Florida State, and Virginia each failed to cover the kenpom spread in the games in question, but:
- Each of those is a very bad team.
- In two of the games, I’m not sure who covered the Vegas closing spread.
- Again, this is an extremely small sample.
Still, with little jumping out to us on tonight’s board (i.e., Miami got the weeknights off this week), we’re going to try it. The question is: Who do we trust?
NC State @ Cal
Both Stanford and Cal are dealing with significant injury concerns tonight. Stanford might be missing Jaylen Blakes, who was out this weekend with a head injury. Cal is probably missed Andrej Stojaković, who’s missed the last three games due to an issue with his hip. EvanMiya labels each player the second-best on his respective roster.
Why we choose Cal over Stanford (in addition to the online dice roller I employed to help make the call) is that we’re getting a better number on Cal relative to the kenpom spread. Cal’s a one-point kenpom favorite. We’re seeing them available as a one-point underdog with at least one book. Some of this (if not all of it) is presumably Stojaković. But Cal’s been without its leading scorer for three games now. Kenpom’s had a chance to adjust, at least in part, and it hasn’t moved much. So long as Cal isn’t continuing to get worse, the kenpom number should be fairly true tonight.
Do we really believe in this West Coast Wednesdays thing? Honestly, yes. College programs don’t handle travel and timing like the pros, and these kinds of tip-offs are new this year, meaning there isn’t any blueprint for them yet. It’d be different for a program like Duke. But NC State? Nothing against Kevin Keatts—he’s fine—but he’s not someone you’d expect to approach this shrewdly and proactively.
Give us the Bears, then. With trepidation, of course, but trepidation almost always accompanies these picks.
Pick: Cal +1 (–117). 10.00 units to win 8.55.
Pick: Over 139 (–110). 10.00 units to win 9.09.
**
I am only roughly 90% confident in these numbers. We’ll get that Google Sheet up soon which tracks all our bets this year.
2025: –94.84 units (started with 1,000-unit bankroll)
2025: –7% average ROI (weighted by unit; sample size: 57 single-game markets)
Pre-2025: 0% average ROI (worse when limited to only sports)
Units taken from best odds we can find at major sportsbooks available to most Americans.
These bets are not investment advice. If you’re worried you or someone you know might have a gambling addiction, call 1-800-GAMBLER for free, confidential help.
