The Big Ten Championship is upon us, and two in-state rivals are all that remain. The No. 8 Michigan Wolverines outlasted the Ohio State Buckeyes 72-69 in the semis to face the No. 22 Michigan State Spartans.\u00a0[ad-4468020]<\/p>\n
No. 22 Michigan State (25-8, 12-6 Big Ten) @ No. 8 Michigan (25-7, 15-3 Big Ten)<\/strong> ATS Matchup Insight<\/a> | CP Insider Gambling Preview<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The two will face off at 3:30 p.m. ET at Bankers Life Fieldhouse Sunday, March 16.<\/p>\n The Michigan State Spartans and the Michigan Wolverines have a storied history, but this will be the first time that the two rivaled programs have ever faced one another in the Big Ten Championship.<\/p>\n During the regular season, Michigan State played the Wolverines twice. They dropped both games, one by five (80-75) and the other by nine (79-70), and this will be their chance for revenge.<\/p>\n Up to this point in the Big Ten tournament, MSU\u2019s victories have been far more convincing than Michigan\u2019s. <\/p>\n The Spartans have won their two contests by an average of 12 points per game, while the Wolverines have taken care of business by just one point against Illinois and three points over Ohio State. Don\u2019t ignore what the Wolverines have done all season just because they\u2019ve put together some shaky performances during the Big Ten Tournament.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a reason they went 25-7, there\u2019s a reason they only lost three Big Ten matchups and there\u2019s a reason they took down Michigan State twice during the regular season.<\/p>\n In the two outings against the Spartans, Michigan allowed solid, if not great three-point shooting from their opponents. However, they also knocked down 50 percent of their 38 attempts from downtown on the series, which is going to be crucial for winning a third time in one year.<\/p>\n Luckily for the Wolverines, they\u2019re shooting the eighth-best three-point percentage of any team in college basketball this season. The Spartans are right behind them at ninth, but MSU is just 133rd at defending the three-point line.<\/p>\n The problem for Michigan is that you learn more when you lose to a team twice than when you win twice. Michigan State now knows what it needs to do to adjust, while the Wolverines must hope to simply do the same as they did before. <\/p>\n Don\u2019t be shocked if this game is the closest of the head-to-head series, but don\u2019t be surprised, either, if the Spartans use what they\u2019ve learned\u2014not to mention their momentum\u2014to steal a Big Ten championship.<\/p>\n Prediction: Michigan State 77 \u2013 Michigan 75<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Michigan St. vs Michigan CBB Picks The Big Ten Championship is upon us, and two in-state rivals are all that remain. The No. 8 Michigan Wolverines outlasted the Ohio State Buckeyes 72-69 in the semis to face the No. 22 Michigan State Spartans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":73645,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1415],"tags":[61343,61344,661,3520,2863,3722,35734,2572,3521,3724,2574],"class_list":["post-73643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ncaa-basketball","tag-2014-big-10-tournament","tag-big-10-final","tag-michigan","tag-michigan-state","tag-michigan-state-spartans","tag-michigan-state-spartans-vs-michigan-wolverines","tag-michigan-state-vs-michigan","tag-michigan-wolverines","tag-spartans","tag-spartans-vs-wolverines","tag-wolverines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73643"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73647,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73643\/revisions\/73647"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n Sunday, March 16 3:30 PM ET @ Bankers Life Fieldhouse<\/strong>
\n Spread: Michigan -3<\/strong>
\n [dfads params=’groups=63740&limit=1&return_javascript=0′]<\/strong><\/p>\nMichigan State<\/h3>\n
\n[ad-6571516]
\nMichigan State has more momentum at the time of the faceoff, but Michigan is the team that went undefeated in head-to-head competition during the regular season. The question is: Which one will mean more when the game officially tips off?<\/p>\nMichigan<\/h3>\n