I love Michigan in this spot in what I feel will be a close game I am going to just take them Money Line. There is some strong movement ATS in this one that pushed it a bit too far for my liking as 74% of the public hammered Illinois yet the line moved against Illinois as Michigan which opened at -2.5 moved to -3.
I love the ML play here and we will pick up 2.5 units of profit with a win in this spot. I will never play a basketball game at more than -150 juice.
This has been an interesting match up between these two one that has the home team covering 17 of the last 19 match ups and this one should not be any different in my opinion. Michigan which has won 4 games out right over Illinois at home in their last 4 as under dogs in three of four contests as they were -1.5, +2, +2.5, and +2.5 and they came with the win by 10, 6, 10, 8. Michigan really needs this game and they have two quality wins at home by better teams than Illinois already in Uconn and Ohio State and they lost to Michigan State here by just 1 point. So the opportunity to win is there for them. They will need to get it done if they have any hopes for any kind of post season tournament.
In conference play they are not so different from Illinois as they are even in points with opponents as Illinois has won by an average of +0.9ppg. The main difference in this match up will be what MIchigan does do at home and their under rated defense. That's right this defense is under rated they have the ability to hold opponents to long scoring droughts and Illinois motion offense = lots of outside shooting which can go periods without points, because of the amount of time to establish a shot. Both of these teams won't be getting to the FT line.
I just can't see Michigan losing three straight games at home as they are 3-1 SU and 2-1 ATS off a home loss playing in their next home game. Michigan will hoise up a lot of threes and they have recently cut down on the alleged poor shot selection shooting 3 less threes per game in their last 5, but they still hoist up over 40% of their shots as threes. Illinois is very good against the three, but most of that had to do with the competition in the Big Ten as they are now giving up 39.8% from beyond the arch in their last 5 games.
Michigan also is a quality team when it comes to forcing turnovers and at home they are +5 in turnover margin while Illinois is -3.1 in turnover margin. They will have a lot of opportunities in this game to get points off turnovers which will be key in a tight defensive game like this one will be.
