Gonzaga at San Francisco Spread, Betting Pick & TV Info

Gonzaga at San Francisco Spread, Picks & TV Info

Written by on January 4, 2017

No. 5 Gonzaga is my pick to be the last unbeaten team in the nation this season both because the Zags are a great team but also because they play in the rather weak West Coast Conference, which Gonzaga has owned for years. All that said, the Bulldogs could be in for a bit of a trap game on Thursday night at San Francisco in college basketball betting.

Gonzaga at San Francisco Spread, Betting Pick & TV Info

When: Thursday, Jan. 5, 9 PM ET Where: War Memorial Gymnasium, San Francisco TV: ESPN2 Stream: WatchESPN RadioGonzaga / San Francisco Opening NCAA Basketball Lines: Gonzaga by TBA

Why Bet On Gonzaga?

The Zags’ (14-0) methodical march up the rankings continued Monday when the Zags reached No. 5 in the AP Top 25 and No. 4 in the USA Today poll. Gonzaga climbed up two spots in both polls after defeating Pepperdine and Pacific. The Zags passed bluebloods Duke and Louisville in the AP poll. The Blue Devils and Cardinals dropped ACC games. But the flu is making the rounds on the team. Guards Nigel Williams-Goss and Josh Perkins still contributed despite being under the weather in the Zags’ 81-61 win over Pacific on Saturday in Stockton, California. Junior center Ryan Edwards has had a bad case of the flu for several days. He didn’t attend last Thursday’s 92-62 win over Pepperdine at the McCarthey Athletic Center and didn’t travel with the team to Pacific. Perkins made three 3-pointers, two in an 11-0 second-half run that erased Pacific’s eight-point lead. He finished with nine points, two assists and two steals in 34 minutes. Backcourt running mates Jordan Mathews and Silas Melson stepped up, combining for 24 points, nine rebounds and five assists. The pair made 6 of 11 3-pointers. Przemek Karnowski added 19 points, five rebounds and seven assists to offset a slow night from leading scorer Williams-Goss. He had nine points on 4-of- 10 shooting. This year’s Gonzaga team became the first in school history to enter conference play with an undefeated record. They have a chance to become the sixth Division I college basketball team since 1976 to complete the regular season without a loss, an exclusive club that includes Indiana State (1979), UNLV (1991), Saint Joseph’s (2004), Wichita State (2014) and Kentucky 2015). In Mark Few’s previous 17 years as Gonzaga’s head coach, the Zags have gone undefeated in West Coast Conference play four times — in 2004, 2006, 2009 and 2013.

Why Bet On San Francisco?

The Dons (11-4) come off a 72-58 loss at Santa Clara on Saturday. Santa Clara nailed 13-of- 26 three-pointers while San Francisco managed to make just 5-of- 23 shots from distance to come away with the 14-point victory. Ronnie Boyce scored a team high 23 points for the Dons while Jordan Ratinho (12) and Matt McCarthy (10) also reached double figures. McCarthy also pulled down 10 rebounds for his second double-double of the season. The Dons, which came into the game shooting 48.7 percent from the floor, shot 38.9 percent compared to Santa Clara, which finished at 43.4. “I thought they were the tougher team early on,” said USF head coach Kyle Smith. “They popped us in the mouth pretty good. We recovered a bit but were playing from behind all game. They took us out of their stuff and we couldn’t take them out of what they wanted to do.” The last time USF defeated a top-five team was on Dec. 29, 1981 when the 6th-ranked Dons downed No. 2 Wichita State, 84-74 at the Rainbow Classic in Honolulu. USF enters this game leading the WCC in three-point field goal percentage at 40.3. However, the Zags are allowing opponents to shoot just 28.5 percent from beyond the arc, which is the 11th-best mark in the nation, Gonzaga is the highest-scoring team in the conference averaging 84.9 points a game, despite not having a player rank any higher than 13th among the conference scoring leaders. USF has lost nine straight to Gonzaga after going 3-3 against the Zags in regular season matchups from 2009-12. The last time USF defeated a top-10 team was on Dec. 29, 1981, when the 6th-ranked Dons downed No. 2 Wichita State, 84-74 at the Rainbow Classic in Honolulu. Other wins vs. top-five teams came in the 1955 (77-63 vs. No. 3 La Salle) and & (83-71 vs. No. 5 Iowa) NCAA Championship games and against No. 5 Notre Dame (79-70; Jan. 10, 1978).

Gonzaga at San Francisco Spread, Betting Pick & TV Info

Take the points here in NCAAB betting as it will be a wild scene in Frisco.