{"id":21066,"date":"2012-01-14T11:47:20","date_gmt":"2012-01-14T16:47:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=21066"},"modified":"2012-01-14T11:47:20","modified_gmt":"2012-01-14T16:47:20","slug":"college-basketball-odds-michigan-state-spartans-vs-northwestern-wildcats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/college-basketball-odds-michigan-state-spartans-vs-northwestern-wildcats-21066\/","title":{"rendered":"College Basketball Odds: Michigan State Spartans vs. Northwestern Wildcats"},"content":{"rendered":"

No. 7 Michigan State Spartans at Northwestern Wildcats
\nSaturday, 1\/14\/12, 3:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 N\/A
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Michigan State -4.5
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Michigan State -5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 136.5
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 136
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Michigan State Spartans are one of the hottest teams in the nation<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Michigan State takes its 4-0 Big Ten Conference record on the road and plays Northwestern inside Welsh-Ryan Arena Saturday afternoon.\u00a0 The Spartans have won four consecutive games in this series and rides in with a 15-game win streak.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s been a special team already because they\u2019ve done what we\u2019ve asked them to do,\u201d commented Spartans head coach Tom Izzo. The team is 4-0 in road games this year and is led by senior forward Draymond Green offensively, averaging 15.9 points and 9.8 rebounds per game.\u00a0 Michigan State is 1-3 ATS as a road favorite of 3.5 to 6 points the last two-plus years.<\/p>\n

The Spartans have outscored their opponents by 20.7 points per game during their win streak, with 12 of the 15 victories coming by double digits.\u00a0 Michigan State ranks 35th in the nation in allowing just 59.6 points, which ranks third in the Big Ten.\u00a0 Izzo has watched his squad win 26 of 29 meetings with Saturday\u2019s opponent while on the sidelines, including victories in 16 of the last 17.\u00a0 Offensively, the team is scoring 76.5 points per game during conference play, which leads all schools.<\/p>\n

Northwestern looks to bounce back from consecutive narrow losses and will be playing its fourth ranked opponent in six games.\u00a0 The Wildcats dropped a 66-64 overtime decision versus the Michigan Wolverines as seven-point road underdogs last time out.\u00a0 Another close defeat may be in the cards in this matchup, as the team lost both meetings a year ago by a combined seven points.\u00a0 Offensively, the team is led by the scoring of forwards Drew Crawford and John Shurna, averaging 17.4 and 18.9 points per game respectively.\u00a0 Northwestern is 2-2 ATS as an underdog this year.<\/p>\n

The Wildcats really live and die beyond the arc, leading the Big Ten and 10th nationally in averaging 8.8 three-point makes per game.\u00a0 Northwestern is ranked 28th in RPI and has already played four teams in the top 10 in the rankings.\u00a0 The team is also very good in taking care of the basketball, ranking second in the nation with a 1.57 assist-to-turnover ratio.\u00a0 Shurna and Crawford take up two of the top three spots in scoring for the conference.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Wildcats due to their 4-1 ATS mark on Saturdays, while the Spartans are 0-4 ATS as a road favorite of 6.5 points or less.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on a winning season and let the college basketball handicappers at Maddux Sports line your pockets with cash.\u00a0 Long term packages are available now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No. 7 Michigan State Spartans at Northwestern Wildcats Saturday, 1\/14\/12, 3:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 N\/A Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Michigan State -4.5 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Michigan State -5 Opening Total:\u00a0 136.5 Current Total:\u00a0 136 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Michigan State takes its 4-0 Big Ten Conference record on the road and plays Northwestern inside Welsh-Ryan Arena […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":19813,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[5832,6249,6250,500,3119,778],"class_list":["post-21066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-draymond-green","tag-drew-crawford","tag-john-shurna","tag-michigan-state-spartans","tag-northwestern-wildcats","tag-tom-izzo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21066","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=21066"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21066\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21068,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21066\/revisions\/21068"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}