Michigan vs. Michigan State
After surviving at home against Nebraska on Tuesday night, Michigan heads into some very hostile territory for a Friday night fight against Michigan State. The Wolverines have failed to cover the spread in seven straight games, so while they keep winning, they’ve had some battles here of late. Collectively, these teams are 38-3, with Michigan State’s two losses coming to Duke at home and Nebraska on the road. Michigan’s lone loss was at home to Wisconsin. This Michigan vs. Michigan State heavyweight battle is must-see TV.
Friday night college basketball schedules are usually light, featuring conferences like the MAAC, Ivy League, Horizon League, and MAC, but this Big Ten game has all of the spotlights pointed on it. It’s such a big game that FOX will carry the primetime broadcast of this tilt.
This preview focuses solely on this game, but we’ve got daily best bets from Greg Peterson, as well as his daily spread and total projections, picks six days a week from Adam Burke, and men’s and women’s college basketball projections five days a week from Tyler Shoemaker, the proprietor of the T Shoe Index.
Odds from DraftKings Sportsbook as of January 29, 5:45 pm PT; check out our Circa Betting Splits and DraftKings Betting Splits.
Michigan (-1.5, 145.5) vs. Michigan State
8 p.m. ET (FOX)
It was a real battle for Michigan on Tuesday night, as they once again had a subpar performance from beyond the arc and it nearly cost them. For as great as many metrics for Michigan look, they’re only shooting 32.8% from 3 in Big Ten games. They lead the conference at 63.9% on 2s and rank second in eFG% offense and defense, but the 3-point shot is such an important thing in college basketball.
Michigan State is shooting 35.8% from 3 in conference games and has also held opponents to a conference-best 28.6% from 3. The Spartans are the top defensive team in the Big Ten overall, and also lead Michigan just barely in 2P% defense at 47.1%. Michigan is at 47.2%. So, these teams will have to earn their buckets inside the arc, but it does appear that the Spartans have an edge outside of it.
One area where Michigan State has been vulnerable is taking care of the basketball. Tom Izzo has to be ripping his hair out about the team’s 20.4% TO% in conference tilts. In the loss to Nebraska, the Spartans turned the ball over 21 times in a game played to 65 possessions. That 58-56 game is a huge outlier for both of those teams, but Michigan State has a TO% over 20% in five of their 10 Big Ten games and they’ve still won four of them. They’re also the conference’s best rebounding team, which helps when you turn the ball over.
It should be said that while Michigan is 0-7 ATS in their last seven games, they’ve won those by 3, 12, 14, 10, 10, and 2, and also lost by 3, so they’ve been asked to cover a few sizable numbers in that stretch where they’ve won by double digits, but those weren’t the right digits.
This top-10 battle features a lot of good players, but some stand out more than others. Five Wolverines average double figures, led by Yaxel Lendeborg with 14.2 PPG. Morez Johnson Jr. (13.9), Aday Mara (10.9), Elliot Cadeau (10.1), and Trey McKenney (10.0) are the others and we’re starting to see them put a little distance between themselves and the bench players with head coach Dusty May narrowing his rotations a bit with all of these important games.
On the Michigan State side, Jeremy Fears Jr. (14.1) leads four players in double figures, with double-double machine Jaxon Kohler (13.1 PPG, 9.3 RPG) next and then Coen Carr (11.4) and Carson Cooper (10.8). Those four do a lot of the heavy lifting for Izzo, as nobody else plays more than 16.7 minutes per game. Fears is second in the nation in assists per game with 8.9 and had 17 assists two games ago against Maryland in a 91-48 blowout. He was 16-of-17 from the free throw line in Michigan State’s overtime win at Rutgers on Tuesday.
Michigan vs. Michigan State Prediction
Despite Michigan State’s ugly turnover numbers, they have a legitimate point guard in Fears who takes good care of the rock and that’ll be important against a Michigan team that can hurt you in transition and wants to speed up the pace of this game. Sparty’s better 3-point shooting and the fact that they don’t have to rely on getting to the rim around the 7-foot-3 Mara gives them a great chance in this game.
Pick: Michigan State +1.5
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