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The Michigan State Spartans were smashing the Under on the NCAAB odds board – but will they on Tuesday versus the Penn State Nittany Lions? What to do with our college basketball picks this time?

Penn State Nittany Lions vs. Michigan State Spartans

Tuesday, February 09, 2021 – 07:00 PM EST at Breslin Center

C’mon, Sparty, why did you go and spoil the fun? We’ve been riding a healthy Under trend with the Michigan State Spartans here at the ranch, but they failed to comply last Tuesday, losing 84-78 to the Iowa Hawkeyes (Over 155). The Spartans even earned their fourth ATS win of the season as 9-point road dogs on the NCAAB odds board. That definitely wasn’t supposed to happen. At least things were back to normal on Saturday: Michigan State (9-7 SU, 4-12 ATS) beat Nebraska 66-56, going Under the 146-point total and coughing up the cash as 12.5-point home favorites. Now they’ve opened as 2-point home faves at BetOnline for Tuesday’s tilt with the Penn State Nittany Lions (7-8 SU, 8-7 ATS), with a total of 144.5.

Altered States

We’ve got some ideas, but first, here’s a capsule look at Ken Pomeroy’s efficiency stats for the two teams in question: Penn State: No. 30 overall (No. 23 offense, No. 59 defense), plus-18.00 margin Michigan State: No. 62 overall (No. 79 offense, No. 38 defense), plus-13.70 margin

You don’t even have to do the math – well, hardly any math – to see there’s at least some value on Penn State here. Home-court advantage has been worth 2.05 points across Division I this year, according to Jeff Sagarin’s advanced stats, so having Michigan State at –2 on the NCAAB lines suggests these are two evenly matched teams on paper. Mr. Pomeroy would care to disagree.

The Lions In Winter

Okay, maybe we’ll do a little math to see how much potential profit margin we have on Penn State. According to Pomeroy’s Adjusted Efficiency Margins, we’re looking at 4.30 points of difference between these Big Ten rivals per 100 possessions, and according to Pomeroy’s Adjusted Tempo numbers, these teams are dead even at 69.5 possessions per game.

That’s... let’s see, carry the one... pretty darn close to PSU –3. That means they “should” be –1 at the Breslin Center. We’ll buy PSU +2 for a dollar. They aren’t really known for basketball – hoops takes a back seat in State College to football, soccer, hockey and women’s volleyball. Plus, they have an interim head coach in Jim Ferry, who took over for Pat Chambers in October after the latter was accused of improper conduct. But that hasn’t stopped the Lions from enjoying their best season since 1995-96, at least according to the Simple Rating System numbers at Sports Reference.

If that weren’t enough, Spartans head coach Tom Izzo decided to demote our main man A.J. Hoggard (minus-2.2 OBPM, plus-3.9 DBPM) before the Iowa game and return Foster Loyer (plus-0.4 OBPM, plus-1.3 DBPM) to the starting backcourt. That’s not going to help the Under cash in this Tuesday. Neither will losing Thomas Kithier (minus-0.5 OBPM, plus-1.8 DBPM) to COVID-19 protocols. Let’s start fading Sparty again, and may the sphere be with you.

NCAAB Pick:Penn State +2 (–105) at BetOnline (visit our BetOnline Review)

*The pick reflects the line at the moment the writer made the play, the odds at the beginning of this article show the live line movement. Since the lines might vary, don’t forget to refer back to our live odds.

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