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Posted at 5:00 PM EST. 

Streaming: Big-10 Network

Penn State +10 over ILLINOIS

8:30 PM EST. Illinois may indeed win and cover here but that’s completely out of our hands. The point is, if you bet the Illini tonight, you would be making a low percentage wager because you would be spotting a bunch of inflated points for so many reasons. Let’s start with the fact that the Illini waxed the floor with Penn State on Dec 23 when they racked up 98 points and won by 17. That influences the market. Also influencing the market is Illinois being ranked #22 in the country while the Nittany Lions are close to hitting rock bottom. Finally, PSU has dropped four in a row, all in the conference so if one were to look at the BIG standings, one would see Penn State at the very bottom of the 14-team conference. That’s not a good look.

What the results do not tell you is that Illinois could not miss a shot when they last faced Penn State. The Illini hit 83% free throws and 56% of their shots from the floor the last time they played and have an extremely small chance of coming close to that again. The Nittany Lions lost by four to Michigan and they lost in OT to Indiana. They also lost by just six to Seton Hall in their non-conference schedule while beating VCU and then beating #15 Virginia Tech by 20 points. Penn State has played the 53rd ranked Strength of Schedule in the country. Penn State has not looked a bit out of place in a savage Big-10 schedule and while we absolutely acknowledge that Illinois is the superior team, 10 points is both insulting and inflated to a high degree.  

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