College basketball betting favors 11th-ranked Michigan State on Sunday as they host Michigan in a game that can be seen on CBS. This is the final regular season game for both teams as the Big 10 Tournament begins next week. The Spartans have won eight of the last ten against the Wolverines although they are just 5-5 against the NCAA basketball betting odds. College basketball betting had Michigan State slipping by Michigan in January by a score of 57-56 but they did not cover the four-point spread.
The Spartans have had more success at home against the Wolverines, covering two of the last four. The problem for Michigan State is that they are oftentimes laying so many points it gets hard for them to cover. The last three meetings in this series have gone under the total.
Michigan is capable of putting together big games and they can give Michigan State trouble. Even though they won on Tuesday against Minnesota in college basketball betting, head coach John Beilein was not entirely pleased. “There’s an actual plan for defensive transition. It’s not just everybody yells, ‘Get back,'” Beilein said. “People have to take certain people, and you sort of play from the outside in and you take sides.”
If Michigan can pull off the upset they would get back to the .500 mark in the Big 10. That figures to be tough in college basketball betting against a very talented Michigan State team that is a Final Four contender. The Wolverines have DeShawn Sims who had 23 points on Tuesday and they also have Manny Harris who scored 22 points. Sims is Michigan’s leading scorer and rebounder in Big Ten play.
Michigan is probably not going to play in the postseason unless they win this game on Sunday and do something in the Big 10 tourney. They have a losing record and even the NIT looks like a longshot. They have lost all of their key games this season for the most part. In Big Ten play, they blew double-digit leads at Wisconsin and home against Northwestern.
Michigan State is the better team but they have simply not been covering the spread at home in college basketball betting. That makes them a risk in this rivalry game even though they should win easily. Laying double-digits is not easy though as Michigan State has not been a good favorite in NCAA basketball betting.