{"id":11125,"date":"2010-11-30T22:00:59","date_gmt":"2010-12-01T03:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=11125"},"modified":"2010-11-30T20:20:05","modified_gmt":"2010-12-01T01:20:05","slug":"michigan-state-spartans-at-duke-blue-devils-college-basketball-expert-picks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/michigan-state-spartans-at-duke-blue-devils-college-basketball-expert-picks-11125\/","title":{"rendered":"Michigan State Spartans at Duke Blue Devils College Basketball Expert Picks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michigan State Spartans at Duke Blue Devils
\nSaturday, 12\/1\/10, 9:30 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 ESPN
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Duke -11
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Duke -11.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 150.5
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 151.5<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Duke Blue Devils have a 10-1 SU record in the ACC\/Big Ten Challenge and will host the Michigan State Spartans on Wednesday night<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Michigan State travels to Durham, North Carolina to play top-ranked Duke in the ACC\/Big Ten Challenge.\u00a0 The Spartans are hoping to help the Big Ten Conference win the challenge for the second-straight season.\u00a0 One area the team will need to clean up before Wednesday night\u2019s contest is turning the ball over, as it comes in averaging 17.0 turnovers a game in the last six contests.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m shocked we\u2019re turning the ball over as much as we are,\u201d said coach Tom Izzo.\u00a0 The program is 5-5 overall in the challenge, which includes an 0-2 mark against tonight\u2019s opponent.\u00a0 Michigan State is 3-16 all-time against teams ranked No. 1 in the AP Top 25.\u00a0 The squad is 1-4 ATS in its last five games and the NCAA basketball lines page has them listed as a double-digit underdog.<\/p>\n

The Spartans are shooting a surprising 41.7 percent from 3-point range this season, which is tops in the Big Ten and would be the best mark from beyond the arc under Izzo.\u00a0 Michigan State is scoring 79.3 points per game while allowing opponents to score 68.2 a contest.\u00a0 The last meeting between these perennial national powers took place in the Sweet 16 of the 2005 NCAA Tournament, with the Spartans defeating Duke, 78-68.\u00a0 In order to pull off the upset tonight, Michigan State will need to improve upon its 64.7 percent shooting from the charity stripe.<\/p>\n

Duke finished its first month of the season with a perfect 6-0 record and many experts are impressed with how the team picked up where it left off after winning the 2010 national championship.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re not looking to be good,\u201d said freshman Kyrie Irving.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re looking to be great.\u00a0 It\u2019s not going to come right away.\u201d\u00a0 The Blue Devils have won 16 consecutive games entering tonight\u2019s contest and are looking to open the season 7-0 for the 16th time under head coach Mike Krzyzewski.\u00a0 \u201cWe need to develop like our team last year developed,\u201d he commented.\u00a0 \u201cWe need to give them a chance to grow in the system.\u201d\u00a0 Duke is 9-2 ATS in its last 11 games overall.<\/p>\n

The Blue Devils have a +11.2 scoring margin in the ACC\/Big Ten Challenge and have won five of their 10 games by 15 or more points.\u00a0 Duke is 3-0 at Cameron Indoor Stadium during the challenge and the program is the winningest team in the event\u2019s history with a 10-1 mark.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard to imagine that things will change, considering the Blue Devils have lost two home games in the past four seasons, posting a 51-2 mark over that span.\u00a0 The team has also won an NCAA-best 80 consecutive non-conference home games.<\/p>\n

Bettors will be interested in knowing that the Spartans are 5-11 ATS in their last 16 games versus a team with a winning record, while the Blue Devils are 21-8-1 in their last 30 home games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michigan State Spartans at Duke Blue Devils Saturday, 12\/1\/10, 9:30 PM EDT, TV:\u00a0 ESPN Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Duke -11 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Duke -11.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 150.5 Current Total:\u00a0 151.5 Michigan State travels to Durham, North Carolina to play top-ranked Duke in the ACC\/Big Ten Challenge.\u00a0 The Spartans are hoping to help the Big Ten […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":9818,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[387,737,4014,607,500,1661,778],"class_list":["post-11125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-acc","tag-big-ten","tag-cameron-indoor-stadium","tag-duke-blue-devils","tag-michigan-state-spartans","tag-mike-krzyzewski","tag-tom-izzo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11125"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11127,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11125\/revisions\/11127"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}