Chad Hartsock

Thursday’s B1G action takes us to Ann Arbor, where the Michigan Wolverines host the Penn St Nittany Lions. The Wolverines continue to be one of the best teams in the country as they sit atop the conference standings. The Nittany Lions, on the other hand, are at the bottom of the conference standings, just scoring their first win on Sunday, as they narrowly survived Minnesota at home by 2 points. All indications are that this game should be a blowout, and it has a 24-pt spread to match, but these teams played a month ago in State College, where the Wolverines had quite the scare in a 74-72 win. The rematch is unlikely to be that close, but I think the best play here is the game total under 163.5.

Michigan is a wagon. They have a top-10 offense, and their defense is rated #1 by both Torvik and KenPom. They force you into bad three-point looks late in the shot clock, they don’t let you get to the free throw line, you almost can’t score against them in the paint and they rebound well. It is hard to imagine that PSU will have much offensive success at all. Indeed, Penn State shoots the three-ball poorly, doesn’t get to the foul line often, and rebounds badly, too. It is hard to see Penn State exceeding the 72 points they scored in the first meeting, and if they match that total, Michigan would have to blow past 90 to take this game over. To reach this point total, we usually have to have both teams scoring, and I don’t see how Penn State pulls its weight, especially on the road — where they have been bad all season. I’ll take the under.

Penn State vs Michigan Prediction: Under 163.5 (-110) available at the time of publishing; playable to 161.5.

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