Thanks to the Big Ten deciding to do their conference tournament at Madison Square Garden, we have a major conference tournament happening this week. Usually this week it was most of the mid-major conferences but this year the Big Ten is happening a week earlier than usually.
by Nick Stasiak – Wannamakeabet Staff Writer
The tournament gets under way Wednesday with two night games and then on Thursday there are games all day. The noon tip on Thursday will be the 8/9 matchup between Maryland and Wisconsin. Maryland enters this game 19-12 while Wisconsin enters a disappointing 14-17. Both teams need to go on an incredible run and win the Big Ten Tournament if they want to make the NCAA Tournament.
These two teams met once this season in early February and Maryland won that game 68-63. However, Wisconsin enters this game playing possibly their best basketball of the entire season. They are 3-1 in their past four games and the one loss was a five point loss to Michigan State. In that stretch, they beat Purdue by four.
Wisconsin isn’t going to light up the scoreboard, they only average 67.3 points per game. But they can play some good defense, allowing just 66.5 points per game which ranks 37th in the country. Meanwhile, Maryland scores 73.7 points per game and gives up 67.1 points per game. Along with Wisconsin’s better play of recent, they also are 6-1 ATS in the past seven games while Maryland is 2-5 ATS in their past seven games against Wisconsin. I expect Wisconsin to continue to play good basketball and come away with a win here.
The Pick: Wisconsin +2.5