{"id":27298,"date":"2013-01-15T23:00:09","date_gmt":"2013-01-16T04:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=27298"},"modified":"2013-01-15T19:12:31","modified_gmt":"2013-01-16T00:12:31","slug":"ncaa-basketball-predictions-michigan-state-spartans-vs-penn-state-nittany-lions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/ncaa-basketball-predictions-michigan-state-spartans-vs-penn-state-nittany-lions-27298\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA Basketball Predictions: Michigan State Spartans vs. Penn State Nittany Lions"},"content":{"rendered":"

No. 18 Michigan State Spartans at Penn State Nittany Lions
\nWednesday, 1\/16\/12, 7:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 Big Ten Network
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Michigan State -12
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Michigan State -12
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 123.5
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 123.5
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Michigan State Spartans are 2-6 ATS in their last eight road games<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Michigan State has won three games in a row, including a 66-56 victory over the Nebraska Cornhuskers as 18-point home favorites Sunday, while going OVER the total for the third time in four contests.\u00a0 \u201cThis is the weirdest 14-3 start while playing a pretty good schedule that I\u2019ve ever been involved with here,\u201d commented Spartans coach Tom Izzo.\u00a0 The Spartans have three players averaging in double figures, with point guard Keith Appling leading the way, scoring 13.8 points per game.\u00a0 Michigan State is 2-6 ATS in its last eight road games, which can\u2019t be ignored when making your NCAA basketball picks Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

The Spartans do most of their damage in the paint offensively, outscoring foes by an average of 11.6 points per game inside\u2014outscoring 15 of 17 teams they\u2019ve faced in that category.\u00a0 Since the start of Big Ten Conference play, Michigan State has been shooting 40 percent from beyond the arc, which ranks third among all teams.\u00a0 Defensively, the team is allowing opponents to shoot just 37.6 percent from the field, which ranks second\u00a0 in the conference.<\/p>\n

Penn State has dropped four games in a row since putting together a four-game win streak, as it looks to bounce back from a 60-42 loss to the Purdue Boilermakers as 11.5-point road underdogs, while going UNDER the total for the third time in four contests.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s only a matter of time before we start hitting shots again,\u201d stated Nittany Lions head coach Patrick Chambers.\u00a0 The program is 7-30 all-time in this series, including a 4-11 mark when playing in State College.\u00a0 Penn State is 1-5 ATS as an underdog this season, something to consider when looking over the college basketball odds page.<\/p>\n

The Nittany Lions will be finishing a string of three games in seven days, as they continue to play without All-Big Ten guard Tim Frazier, who is recovering from Achilles tendon surgery.\u00a0 Penn State hasn\u2019t eclipsed 54 points in its four conference games, averaging just 49.5 points in that situation.\u00a0 It\u2019s still important to note that the squad leads the conference in hitting 76.2 percent of its attempts from the charity stripe.<\/p>\n

Sports bettors will likely back the Nittany Lions due to the home team covering the last four meetings in this series.<\/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

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No. 18 Michigan State Spartans at Penn State Nittany Lions Wednesday, 1\/16\/12, 7:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 Big Ten Network Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Michigan State -12 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Michigan State -12 Opening Total:\u00a0 123.5 Current Total:\u00a0 123.5 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Michigan State has won three games in a row, including a 66-56 victory over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":25963,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[3442,5831,500,497,6304,778],"class_list":["post-27298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-big-ten-conference","tag-keith-appling","tag-michigan-state-spartans","tag-penn-state-nittany-lions","tag-tim-frazier","tag-tom-izzo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27298","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=27298"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27299,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27298\/revisions\/27299"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}