{"id":21920,"date":"2012-03-01T10:55:40","date_gmt":"2012-03-01T15:55:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=21920"},"modified":"2012-03-01T10:51:55","modified_gmt":"2012-03-01T15:51:55","slug":"wolverines-vs-fighting-illini-big-ten-conference-rivals-meet-inside-assembly-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wolverines-vs-fighting-illini-big-ten-conference-rivals-meet-inside-assembly-hall-21920\/","title":{"rendered":"Wolverines vs. Fighting Illini: Big Ten Conference Rivals Meet Inside Assembly Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"

No. 16 Michigan Wolverines at Illinois Fighting Illini
\nThursday, 3\/1\/12, 7:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ESPN
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Illinois PK
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Illinois -2.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 120.5
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 120.5
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Michigan Wolverines have not lost back-to-back games during the 2011-12 campaign<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Michigan had its four-game win streak snapped in dropping a 75-61 contest to the Purdue Boilermakers as five-point home favorites last time out, but will now look to make it three wins in a row in this Big Ten Conference series.\u00a0 The Wolverines will definitely be tested, as they\u2019ve lost 13 consecutive games inside Assembly Hall.\u00a0 \u201cThere\u2019s many other places that Michigan and a lot of teams have not won at in a long time,\u201d commented Wolverines head coach John Beilein.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re trying to get a really tough road win.\u201d\u00a0 Michigan is 29-11 ATS as a underdog the last two-plus years.<\/p>\n

The Wolverines used four players scoring in double figures in a 70-61 win over the Illini at the Crisler Center on Feb. 12.\u00a0 Michigan was led by the play of junior guard Tim Hardaway Jr., who scored a team-high 15 points.\u00a0 Overall, the team shot 50 percent from the field, including 44 percent from beyond the arc.\u00a0 Trey Burke is also an important player to watch, as he continues to be mentioned among a few to be named the Big Ten\u2019s Freshman of the Year.<\/p>\n

Illinois wraps up Big Ten play with back-to-back games against ranked team, posting a 3-4 mark in such contests during the 2011-12 campaign.\u00a0 The Fighting Illini are certainly on the bubble and the locker room knows it.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019ve talked about the postseason the whole time,\u201d commented Fighting Illini head coach Bruce Weber.\u00a0 It\u2019s important to note that all three wins versus ranked teams have happened inside tonight\u2019s venue.\u00a0 The program\u2019s current win streak at home versus Michigan is its longest versus any conference opponent at this time.\u00a0 Illinois is 6-8 ATS at home and the \u201cunder\u201d is 7-6 in that situation.<\/p>\n

The Fighting Illini snapped a six-game skid with a spirited 65-54 win over the Iowa Hawkeyes last time out, which served as the team\u2019s first double-digit margin victory in conference play.\u00a0 Sophomore center Meyers Leonard led the team by scoring a season-high 22 points and also grabbing 14 rebounds.\u00a0 Brandon Paul is another player to watch offensively, averaging 17.6 points per game during conference play, which is third on the league\u2019s list.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Wolverines due to their 7-1 ATS mark following a double-digit home loss, while the Fighting Illini are 1-6 ATS versus conference foes.<\/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. 16 Michigan Wolverines at Illinois Fighting Illini Thursday, 3\/1\/12, 7:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ESPN Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Illinois PK Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Illinois -2.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 120.5 Current Total:\u00a0 120.5 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Michigan had its four-game win streak snapped in dropping a 75-61 contest to the Purdue Boilermakers as five-point home favorites […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":19814,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[4011,3442,6417,697,468,5803],"class_list":["post-21920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-assembly-hall","tag-big-ten-conference","tag-brandon-paul","tag-illinois-fighting-illini","tag-michigan-wolverines","tag-tim-hardaway-jr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21920","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=21920"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21921,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21920\/revisions\/21921"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}