College Basketball Betting: Washington at UCLA

UCLA used to be near unbeatable at Pauley Pavilion. Not anymore. (AP Images)

It’s not too often we will preview a game featuring two unranked college basketball teams here at the Beat, but I felt compelled to write about Thursday night’s Washington-UCLA game because it shows just how down the Pac-10 is this season. The Huskies have opened as 4-point favorites on Bodog’s college basketball odds.

This is not the UCLA you remember. The storied Bruins (7-10, 6-8 ATS) sit at the bottom of the Pac-10 standings and already have lost four games this season at Pauley Pavilion. In fact, UCLA was beaten 67-46 on Saturday by crosstown USC for the Trojans’ biggest win ever at Pauley and biggest over UCLA anywhere in more than 60 years. If you want a good barometer on how UCLA will fare in a game, look to senior forward Nikola Dragovic. He is averaging 15.6 points and shooting 50% in UCLA victories, but only 7.5 points on 28% shooting in losses. The Bruins are second-to-last in the conference in scoring and last in turnovers committed. It’s shocking how far they have fallen.

Washington (12-5, 5-12 ATS) was the preseason conference favorite and the Pac-10’s only ranked team for a while – currently there are none – but fell out of the Top 25 after a three-game losing streak to start this month. But the Huskies have bounced back with impressive home wins over Cal and Stanford. They are led by senior swingman Quincy Pondexter, who averages 20.3 points and 7.9 rebounds per game and is the Pac-10’s only three-time player of the week this season. But while the Huskies are very good at home, they have yet to win an off-campus game this season (0-4) and have dropped their first two conference road games by 17 points each.

When making your college basketball bet on this game, know that Washington hasn’t won at Pauley Pavilion since 2006 – that’s the Huskies’ lone road win against UCLA since 1987. Overall, UW is 3-42 all-time at Pauley. But this isn’t your normal UCLA team, either.

March Madness is coming, so stick with Bodog for all your college basketball odds