Michigan State Spartans at Wisconsin Badgers Betting Preview

Opening Line: Michigan State +2 / Wisconsin -2 O/U 123

Time: 9 PM EST Tuesday February 2, 2010 on ESPN

Tonight in a Big 10 match up the 16th ranked Wisconsin Badgers host the 5th ranked Michigan State Spartans. The Badgers are 3 games back of the Spartans in conference play and unless they can win this game it looks as if they have no chance to win the Big 10 this season. MSU is on fire, as they have won 10 games in a row and have yet to lose in conference play. Wisconsin is coming off a loss and has lost 3 of their last 7 games.

This season the Badgers are 12-0 at home and 10-7 ATS and the Spartans are 5-2 on the road and 8-12 ATS.

In their last games Wisconsin lost to Purdue 60-57 last Thursday night while Michigan State beat Northwestern 79-70 on Saturday.

The Spartans have lost their last 6 games when playing at Wisconsin.

The Badgers are great at home, as they are riding a 17-game winning streak there and they have beaten their last 5 ranked opponents in their house. This season at home Wisconsin is holding opponents to 38.7% shooting averaging only 53.1 ppg.

To snap their losing streak at Wisconsin their solid backcourt of Kalin Lucas (16 ppg), who is the reigning Big 10 player of the year, and Durrell Summers (10.8 ppg) will have to play well. Summers is the current Big 10 player of the week, but in 3 of his 4 games at Wisconsin he was held scoreless. The MSU frontcourt of Raymar Morgan (11.1 ppg) and Draymond Green (10.4 ppg) has to score inside tonight to open up the shooting lanes for the guards.

MSU will have to figure out how to score on a solid Wisconsin defense that is only giving up an average of 57.1 ppg.

Wisconsin will have to win with their backcourt of Trevon Hughes (16 ppg) and Jason Bohannon (10.4 ppg), as their main inside player of F Jon Leuer (15.4 ppg 6.2 rpg) is out with a wrist injury.

The Badgers have to rebound well as a team tonight and keep the Spartans' forwards of Green (8 rpg) and Delvon Roe (6.1 rpg) off the boards tonight. With Leuer out there is no Wisconsin player that is averaging over 5 boards per game.

Michigan State is 1-4 ATS in their last 5 games, 4-1 ATS in their last 5 games as an underdog of 0.5-6.5, and has an Under record of 5-1 in their last 6 road games.

Wisconsin is 7-3 ATS in their last 10 home games, 4-0 ATS in their last 4 games as a favorite of 0.5-6.5, and has an Under record of 5-2 in their last 7 home games.

In this match up the home team is 9-2 ATS in the last 11 games and the total has gone Under in 6 of the last 8 games.

Staff Game Pick

There is a big home bias in this series with the home team going 9-2 against the spread in the last 11 meetings. We're going to follow that trend tonight. The Badgers while only 6-3 in conference-play overall are a perfect 4-0 SU in Big Ten games and 12-0 overall at home. Wisconsin has already beaten Purdue and Ohio St. on their home court this season. Take the Badgers -2