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The No. 7 Michigan Wolverines (11-0) are coming off one of the most impressive basketball performances all year and they’ll look to build off that this week against the No. 23 Minnesota Golden Gophers (10-4).
The last time the Wolverines hit the hardwood they got the attention of the entire college basketball world. Michigan took down No. 9 Wisconsin with ease, dispatching them 77-54. UM even went on a 36-3 run at one point, which is insane against anybody but even more wild against a top-10 team. Center Hunter Dickinson is the leader of the team in points and boards, but he’s not the only player driving the team. The squad from Ann Arbor boasts three players in double figures while averaging 82 points per game. Defensively, they only give up 65 each game and are beating Big Ten opponents by an average of 15 points.
Minnesota isn’t just going to roll over and bow down to the Maize and Blue, though the first time they met it didn’t end well. Michigan steamrolled the Golden Gophers by a score of 82-57. The Wolverine defense held them in check, allowing only Marcus Carr to score more than nine points, and he only got 14. The first meeting was only on Jan 6, so it’s not like Minny has had a ton of extra time to change up everything for this meeting.
Game Time/TV Channel/Streaming
You can watch Michigan vs. Minnesota on Saturday, January 16th at 2:00 p.m. ET on ESPN2, or you can stream it via the ESPN app with a cable or streaming service login.
Point Spread, Totals, Odds, Trends
Point spread: Michigan -6
Point Total: 147
Money line: Michigan -250, Minnesota +205
The Best Bet
It can be tough for teams to shoot in the barn in Minneapolis, especially when they just rolled this team a few days ago. We’d lean on Michigan to cover, but these teams only finished with 139 points last week. That shouldn’t go up today.
Pick: Under 147
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