Saint Mary's Gaels vs. Portland Pilots: Prediction, Preview, Picks & Odds - 2/11/2023

Time: 6 p.m. ET

Venue: Chiles Center, Portland, OR

Where to watch: CBS Sports Network

DraftKings: Saint Mary's -11.5

FanDuel: Saint Mary's -11.5

BetMGM: Saint Mary's -11.5

Caesars: Saint Mary's -11.5

No. 15 Saint Mary's: 21-5 (10-1 WCC)

Portland: 13-14 (5-7 WCC)

February is here and the college basketball season is taking full shape. Conference races still to be determined, the top 25 completely in shambles for what seems like every week, and there's bound to be an upset what seems like every single week. But as the season continues to progress with what seems like exciting action every week, you know our champion handicappers continue to put the work in each and every week to not only make money for them, but to ensure you get money in your pocket. All you need to do is look at the last 30 days. Scott Rickenbach has reeled in a net profit of $14,000 with a 24-9-0 run on the college hardwood. Team Del Genio has killed it with a 13-1-0 run at +$11,900. Will Rogers (28-15-0) and Matt Fargo (40-27-0) have also seen five figures over the last 30 days with college basketball. Surely, you want to get on this winning as well. All you need to do is go to bigal.com, check out our Best Bets page and make sure you are following along on the action. March will be here before you know it! Take advantage of our best best plays and find out what our champion handicappers are doing at bigal.com!

SMC: lost 78-74 (OT) at LMU

Portland: won 81-73 vs. Pacific

This is why I hate college basketball. There is no consistency throughout the entirety of a season. I think there were better times when teams were having undefeated records of 29-0 heading into the conference tournament, and you had all this intrigue of who's the best team and why and how and you got excited each week to see a team that you were hoping to see lose at some point.

 

So we Fast forward to this past Thursday when the Saint Mary's Gaels had everything in their power to finish the rest of the season strong and win the regular season conference championship, go into the conference tournament as favorites in the West Coast conference, and come away with the championship and get a very nice seed in the NCAA tournament. Instead, St. Mary's completely just forgets how to play basketball on Thursday and loses 78-74 in overtime to LMU.

 

Yes, the same team that went into Gonzaga earlier this season and snapped the seven-year long home winning streak in Spokane just defeated the team that got its biggest win of the season to date and is now in major danger of having everything reset. All the good luck, all the good fortune that St. Mary's had built over the last week has now come crashing down because LMU is apparently the greatest basketball program that we have ever seen in any walk of life to date.

 

For all the talk we've been doing about Saint Mary's and Gonzaga winning the West Coast conference, we now have to take into consideration that LMU is probably going to go on a neutral site in Las Vegas and knock both of these teams out because that's just the way college basketball works in the dumbest of ways period now as a result, St. Mary's is on the verge of losing their top spot in the conference standings should they lose again. And now that they are playing the Portland Pilots, a team that is very much capable of knocking off anybody on their homecourt, if St. Mary's loses again this is going to be a huge problem for the West Coast conference because now suddenly you know you're not going to have a strong two bid conference. you are likely to get two but one's going to have a much lower seed because the other one just forgets how to play basketball.

 

But seriously, This is why college basketball is so difficult to bet and it is so difficult to win every week. When you see our champion handicappers putting up these absurd numbers in how they pick college basketball, it honestly boggles my mind that they are as smart as they are but when it comes to this sport because nothing makes sense. There is no way that St. Mary's should have lost that game the way that they did. They completely folded in the second-half and ran out of gas in overtime period the energy that they brought after beating Gonzaga should have carried over to this game against a team that they should not have taken lightly and suddenly speaking we are in a position where St. Mary's is just running out of time.

 

I didn't even want to give you a preview of this game because there's no reason why St. Mary's should lose this game period they are already going to lose some spots in the rankings I am positive about. But at least if you get a victory and some teams in the top 25 fall which is bound to happen this week given what's going on in the Big 12, then you likely have a chance. Saint Mary’s 80, Portland 68

Saint Mary's is 33-22 ATS as a favorite the last 3 seasons.

Saint Mary's is 14-5 ATS as a road favorite of 9.5 to 12 since 1997.

Portland is 0-6 ATS revenging a loss by 10 points or more this season.

PG: Logan Johnson

SG: Aidan Mahaney

SF: Alex Ducas

PF: Kyle Bowen

C: Mitchell Saxen

PG: Juan Sebastian Gorosito

SG: Mike Meadows

SF: Chika Nduka

PF: Tyler Robertson

C: Moses Wood