{"id":31224,"date":"2013-11-11T19:42:45","date_gmt":"2013-11-12T00:42:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=31224"},"modified":"2013-11-11T19:42:45","modified_gmt":"2013-11-12T00:42:45","slug":"college-basketball-picks-kentucky-wildcats-vs-michigan-state-spartans-champions-classic-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/college-basketball-picks-kentucky-wildcats-vs-michigan-state-spartans-champions-classic-preview-31224\/","title":{"rendered":"College Basketball Picks: Kentucky Wildcats vs. Michigan State Spartans, Champions Classic Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kentucky Wildcats vs. Michigan State Spartans
\nTuesday, 11\/12\/13, 7:30 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ESPN
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Michigan State -2
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Michigan State -3
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 N\/A
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 N\/A
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Michigan State Spartans are 3-19 SU all-time against the No. 1 team in the AP Top 25 Poll<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kentucky has won its first two games of the 2013-14 campaign, including an 89-57 home victory over UNC Asheville, with four freshmen in the starting lineup in each of those affairs.\u00a0 The Wildcats have started four first-year players 137 times in their history, with 98 of those coming under current head coach John Calipari, which is important to consider when making your college basketball predictions Tuesday night.\u00a0 Freshman forward Julius Randle leads the team in scoring, averaging 22.5 points and 15.0 rebounds per game.<\/p>\n

The Wildcats are the first team in the 22-year history of the AP Poll to begin a season No. 1 after finishing the previous season unranked, which can\u2019t be ignored when looking over the college basketball betting lines.\u00a0 Kentucky is out-rebounding its opponents by a 50-27 margin having logged 48 or more in both games this season.\u00a0 The program owns a 97-57 all-time record against the Big Ten Conference, including a 12-10 mark in this particular series.\u00a0 Calipari has compiled a 62-8 SU record as the top-ranked coach in the country.<\/p>\n

Michigan State opened up its season with a 98-56 blowout victory over McNeese State last Friday, as it prepares for the first meeting of No. 1 and No. 2 on the hardwood since 2008 at the United Center in Chicago.\u00a0 The Spartans have played more ranked teams than any other Final Four participant since 1998, while going 1-1 in the first two years of the Champions Classic.\u00a0 The program is 3-19 SU all-time when playing the top-ranked team in the country.<\/p>\n

The Spartans are known for controlling the boards, as they\u2019ve out-rebounded 77.3 percent of their opponents under longtime head coach Tom Izzo.\u00a0 Michigan State returns six of its top seven scorers from last season\u2014featuring one of the most experienced rosters to start a new campaign nationally.\u00a0 Izzo welcomes back 84.2 percent of his scoring, 79.3 percent of his rebounding and 84.0 percent of his assists.<\/p>\n

Sports bettors will likely back the Spartans due to their 5-2 ATS mark in their last seven games against SEC opponents.<\/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":"

Kentucky Wildcats vs. Michigan State Spartans Tuesday, 11\/12\/13, 7:30 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ESPN Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Michigan State -2 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Michigan State -3 Opening Total:\u00a0 N\/A Current Total:\u00a0 N\/A Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Kentucky has won its first two games of the 2013-14 campaign, including an 89-57 home victory over UNC Asheville, with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":26003,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[7766,756,7767,876,500,778,3674],"class_list":["post-31224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-champions-classic","tag-john-calipari","tag-julius-randle","tag-kentucky-wildcats","tag-michigan-state-spartans","tag-tom-izzo","tag-united-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31224","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=31224"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31225,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31224\/revisions\/31225"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}