{"id":14122,"date":"2011-03-13T01:53:45","date_gmt":"2011-03-13T06:53:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=14122"},"modified":"2011-03-13T02:08:24","modified_gmt":"2011-03-13T07:08:24","slug":"big-ten-tournament-championship-picks-penn-state-vs-ohio-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/big-ten-tournament-championship-picks-penn-state-vs-ohio-state-14122\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Ten Tournament Championship Picks: Penn State vs. Ohio State"},"content":{"rendered":"

Big Ten Tournament Championship<\/strong>
\n#6 Penn State Nittany Lions vs. #1 Ohio State Buckeyes, Conseco Fieldhouse, Indianapolis, IN<\/strong>
\nSunday, March 13, 2011, 3:30 pm Eastern, TV: CBS<\/strong>
\nOpening Line: Ohio State -10<\/strong>
\nCurrent Line: Ohio State -9.5<\/strong>
\nOpening Total: 128<\/strong>
\nCurrent Total: 126.5<\/strong>
\nMoney Line: Ohio State -600 \/ Penn State +450<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Big
David Lighty and the Buckeyes are looking to repeat as tournament champs on Sunday.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It is no surprise to see the top-seeded Ohio State Buckeyes (31-2) back in the Big Ten Conference championship game on Sunday at Conseco Fieldhouse to defend their tournament crown.\u00a0 But their opponent is a bit of a shocker considering who the sixth-seeded Penn State Nittany Lions (18-13) defeated on the way to the title game and how they beat them.<\/p>\n

Penn State was an underdog in its last two Big Ten tournament games, knocking out #3 Wisconsin on Friday in the quarterfinals and #7 Michigan State on Saturday in the semifinals.\u00a0 The Nittany Lions beat the Badgers 36-33 in the lowest-scoring game of the tourney and then turned around and routed the Spartans 61-48 thanks to a strong second half.<\/p>\n

Michigan State appeared to be on a mission after crushing #2 Purdue 74-56 in the quarterfinals on Friday, but Penn State got a huge performance from Talor Battle, who had become the school\u2019s all-time leading scorer the day before despite a dismal shooting performance.\u00a0 Battle made just 3 of 18 shots against Wisconsin and totaled nine points, but he scored 17 of his 25 points against the Spartans after halftime and connected on 6 of 11 attempts from 3-point range.<\/p>\n

The Nittany Lions should have done enough to get into the NCAA tournament over the last two days while Ohio State (-9.5) has all but locked up a top seed in the Big Dance.\u00a0 The Buckeyes played slightly better in a 68-61 win over #4 Michigan on Saturday in the semifinals, although they failed to cover the spread for the second time in as many games.<\/p>\n

Ohio State struggled in the quarterfinals on Thursday against Northwestern, needing overtime to fend off the pesky Wildcats in a 67-61 victory.\u00a0 The Buckeyes shot just 32.2 percent from the field in that game but bounced back by converting 46.3 against the Wolverines.\u00a0 Jared Sullinger and Jon Diebler made only 6 of 22 shots against Northwestern but connected on 11 of 25 against Michigan.\u00a0 Now they face their toughest defensive test of the tournament.<\/p>\n

Surprisingly, the OVER has cashed in the last five meetings between Ohio State and Penn State.\u00a0 The Buckeyes won all five meetings straight-up, going 3-2 against the spread.\u00a0 The Nittany Lions are 6-1-1 ATS in their last eight games overall and did not score more than 66 points in any of them.\u00a0 The OVER is 7-2-1 in Ohio State\u2019s last 10 games overall, and the team routed #6 Minnesota 90-61 in last year\u2019s championship game.<\/p>\n

If you are betting this Big Ten tournament game between Ohio State & Penn State, be sure to check out the winning basketball picks packages we offer.\u00a0 You can also get free winners on our free NCAA basketball picks page.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Big Ten Tournament Championship #6 Penn State Nittany Lions vs. #1 Ohio State Buckeyes, Conseco Fieldhouse, Indianapolis, IN Sunday, March 13, 2011, 3:30 pm Eastern, TV: CBS Opening Line: Ohio State -10 Current Line: Ohio State -9.5 Opening Total: 128 Current Total: 126.5 Money Line: Ohio State -600 \/ Penn State +450 It is no […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":194,"featured_media":9785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[4638,4614,4639,4615,4612,4637,3887,4316,4317,4318,463,4656,497],"class_list":["post-14122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-2011-big-ten-conference-tournament","tag-big-10-basketball","tag-big-10-betting","tag-big-10-picks","tag-big-ten-basketball","tag-big-ten-picks","tag-college-basketball-betting","tag-free-college-basketball-pick","tag-ncaa-basketball-odds","tag-ncaa-hoops-picks","tag-ohio-state-buckeyes","tag-ohio-state-penn-state-preview","tag-penn-state-nittany-lions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14122","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\/194"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14122"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14125,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14122\/revisions\/14125"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}