Published on Friday, 1/24/25, at 5:01 p.m. Eastern.
Updated on Saturday, 1/25/25, at 1:03 p.m. Eastern.
The Auto-Fade ‘Canes are playing more than 3,000 miles away from South Florida again Saturday night, so gamblers are loving life – again!
The Miami Hurricanes (4-15 straight up, 3-16 against the spread) are facing California for an 8:30 p.m. Eastern tip on ESPNU in Berkeley. As of late Friday afternoon, FanDuel had California (10-8 SU, 10-8-1 ATS) installed as a 6.5-point home favorite with a -115 price.
The total was 151.5 points, and the ‘Canes were +230 on the money line. FanDuel opened the Golden Bears at -5.5, only to adjust the number less than an hour later.
UPDATE: As of late last night, most spots had Cal at -9 or -9.5. As of 1:15 p.m. Eastern today, most shops had the Golden Bears listed as 10.5-point home ‘chalk’ with a total of 150.5. UM was +475 on the money line.
For first-half wagers, Cal was favored by 5.5 points with a total of 71.5. The Golden Bears had a Team Total of 80.5 points.
Fading the ‘Canes earned us four units of profit last Saturday vs. SMU. Then on Wednesday night at Stanford, we collected 3.5 units of profit backing the Cardinal.
Mark Madsen’s team has won back-to-back games at NC St. (65-62 as a 6.5-point road underdog) last Saturday and vs. FSU (77-68 as a 3.5-point home ‘dog) on Wednesday night. Cal beat the Seminoles despite playing without Andrej Stojakovic, who paces his team and is fourth in the ACC in scoring with an 18.9 points-per-game average.
Stojakovic missed the win over FSU due to an illness, and he’s listed as ‘questionable’ vs. Miami. He averages 4.4 rebounds, 1.7 assists, 1.1 blocked shots and 0.8 steals per game.
The Golden Bears are 8-3 SU and 6-4-1 ATS in 11 home games, but they’ve won seven of those eight games by margins of nine points or more and all eight victories have been by at least six points.
This play is simply all about going AGAINST Miami, though. The ‘Canes have lost eight games in a row and are mired in a 0-9 ATS slide. They’ve lost all eight of their ACC games, losing by double-digit margins seven times.
In last week’s 117-74 loss to SMU as a 5.5-point home underdog, UM allowed the Mustangs to explode for a 47-11 run to take a 56-18 lead with 2:12 left in the first half. Even with Miami making four shots in a row to end the half, SMU still led 60-26 at halftime.
The Mustangs led by as many as 45 points and hit 100 points with 6:16 remaining.
Then on Wednesday, Stanford raced out to a 21-3 lead on Miami, led 32-9 at one point and took a 37-21 advantage into halftime. The Cardinal cruised to an 88-51 win as a 10.5 or 11-point home favorite.
As I file this story at 5:00 p.m. Eastern, the only numbers we have available are for the side, total and money line. Therefore, our only prediction (for now) is Cal -6.5 at a -115 price. Let’s play the Golden Bears risking 2.93 to win 2.5 units.
Please check back later as I’ll add plays for Cal in the first half and most likely its Team Total to go ‘over.’
UPDATE/PREDICTIONS on Saturday afternoon: Hopefully some of you readers got -6.5 at FanDuel yesterday afternoon? We don’t have FanDuel in Florida, so I had to settle for Cal -9, risking 2.75 units to win 2.5. I also have Cal -5.5 in the first half, risking 1.65 units to win 1.5. I also have Cal’s Team Total ‘over’ 80.5 points for one-half unit.