College Hoops Big 10 Style – Michigan at Ohio State
BetUS NCAA Basketball Betting Odds: OHIO STATE -4.5
Here are some of the NCAA basketball sports betting trends as they relate to this matchup:
* MICH has covered two of its last six games
* MICH has won 14 of its last 20 games SU
* MICH has lost 19 of its last 25 road games SU * OSU has won 18 of its last 23 games SU
* OSU has won 17 of its last 19 home games SU
Also….
* OSU has won eight of the last nine meetings SU
* OSU has covered seven of the last nine meetings
* OSU has won the last five meetings SU as the home team
* OSU has covered four of the last five meetings as the home team
* OSU has had the shooting edge in six of the last eight meetings
* OSU has had the rebounding edge in four of the last six meetings * MICH has made more three-pointers in each of the last five meetings
In the first meeting between these two, B.J. Mullens hit seven of nine shots and scored 15 points as the Buckeyes went to Ann Arbor and won a 65-58 decision. In that game OSU got 19 points from Evan Turner, who went to the line 14 times, and shot 54.5% from the field, while Michigan threw bricks, shooting 35.7%. Aside from Manny Harris, who went 7-for-16, the rest of the team went 32.5%. What kept Michigan in the game was ten three-point shots, four of them coming from Stu Douglass, in what was his only double-digit scoring game in the last seven. Can the rest of the team respond here?
Perhaps, but Michigan will clearly need another effort like the one it got against Northwestern, where it scored 68 points and hit nine shots from beyond the arc. Come to think of it, they’re going to have to do better than that, since the Wolverines were only 42%. In the last four games, that is their best shooting percentage, and they have averaged less than 59 points a game in that time. They have looked non-competitive in road games against Illinois and Penn State. They shoot less than 43% for the season and give up a little more than 43%. This team is slumping.
I don’t see a compelling reason to move with Michigan here, especially since Ohio State has shot 52% or better in four of its last five games, have been getting steadier production from prize freshman center Mullens (double-digit scoring in six straight games) and even though they’re not streaking, they are at least getting used to playing without team leader David Lightly. Michigan doesn’t cough the ball up a lot (10.5 turnovers a game) but they need to start playing the kind of high-octane ball John Beilein intended for them to play.
We’ll lay the points with Ohio State, the 4.5-point favorite in the BetUS NCAA basketball betting odds.
