Penn State vs Michigan State Odds, Pick for Thursday

Here's Penn State vs Michigan State odds and a pick for Thursday.

While this may be the last season of basketball in the Pac-12, let's not forget that there are major changes coming to the other conferences affected by re-alignment.

The Big Ten is about to bloat in size and geography, watering down some of the rivalries and traditions we know and love. Programs like Michigan State and Penn State will still meet on the hardwood, but not as often and with a little bit less juice.

Let's enjoy some of these fiery conference rivalries while they're still at their best, like this outing between the Nittany Lions and Spartans.

The first year of the Mike Rhoades regime in State College has been spotty so far. The Nittany Lions dropped five straight games at one point in November and December. Four of those losses came to strong competition, but the fifth was a disastrous home loss to Bucknell.

That stretch looks damning for a Penn State team that should, on paper, have a little bit of juice.

Rhoades brought his leading scorer from last season's NCAA tournament VCU team — Ace Baldwin Jr. — to run the show at Penn State. He's sparking the offense off the dribble and leading the Big Ten in steals.

He's joined by transfer-happy big man Qudus Wahab, previously of Georgetown, Maryland and inexplicably Georgetown a second time.

D'Marco Dunn and Puff Johnson migrated from North Carolina together, offering two very capable wing players in the rotation.

Zach Hicks was good for 10 points and five rebounds per night at Temple last year and Leo O'Boyle was a 1,000-point scorer at Lafayette.

That's about as good of a haul as Penn State fans could expect via the transfer portal. The real game changer, however, was on the existing roster.

Kanye Clary scored just three points per game as a freshman, cracking double-figures four times. This season, he's averaging 18 points per game, including three outings topping 25 points.

Collectively, there's talent on this roster. So far, it hasn't manifested into success. Two overtime losses and some ugly shooting percentages may be a sign that brighter days are coming, as evidenced by a home win over Ohio State.

However, the Big Ten schedule will pack a punch.

The must-have app for college basketball bettors

The best NCAAB betting scoreboard

Free picks from proven pros

Live win probabilities for your bets

DOWNLOAD NOW

I would imagine Tom Izzo didn't expect his team — which began the season highly-ranked — to have five losses already before the new year. Scratch beyond the surface and it's easy to see that the sky is not falling on Sparty, though there are definitely reasons to be wary about Michigan State at this point.

The season-opening, overtime loss to James Madison looked jarring at the time. The Dukes were expected to be a strong mid-major, but an opening-night win in the Breslin Center was a shock.

Now nearly two months later and James Madison has yet to lose. There's only one other KenPom top-100 team among James Madison's 13 victims to date, but clearly, they're a team that expects to be a factor into the postseason.

Sparty's next two losses came by single digits to Duke and Arizona, both top-10 teams with Final Four potential. In conference, Michigan State is 0-2. The losses came at home to a very strong Wisconsin team and on the road at Nebraska, which currently boasts its best KenPom ranking since 2019.

It's reductive to sweep those losses all under the rug. After all, this is a team that some had ranked atop the preseason polls, not just in the Big Ten but nationally, in October. None of those losses amount to the end of days, yet collectively, we have to shift our expectations for this team.

Tyson Walker has been excellent, as a scorer. He's dropping 20 points per game, but as the primary ball-handler on this team, he's doing little to create for others. He's posting only 2.8 assists per game and ranks 15th in the country in percentage of team shots taken.

Michigan State's next three leading scorers — A.J. Hoggard, Jaden Akins and Malik Hall — have combined to score 31.9 points per game on 26.2 field goal attempts. That's too inefficient for an offense that should be more balanced and have some more flow to it.

It's concerning that no Spartan is making more than three free throws per game.

Some of it feels like shots just aren't falling, but a larger issue is which shots are being taken and by whom.

Michigan State's offense is dictated by its trio of guards. The Spartans look successful when Walker, Hoggard and Akins are getting downhill to create good looks for themselves and the bigs at the rim.

Sparty makes the fifth-highest percentage of their shots at the rim in the nation, per Hoop-Math. When they get the looks they want, it's layups and dunks.

The problem? They're shooting the 40th-lowest percentage of shots at the rim of the 363 D-I teams.

Penn State's defense has been a mixed bag, at best, though it has a bright spot. Baldwin is one of the best perimeter defenders in the nation, as evidenced by his crown as A-10 Defensive Player of the Year last season.

He'll give Walker everything he can handle, putting the impetus on Hoggard and Akins to create. Based on what we've seen so far this season, I don't trust that duo to do enough to make Sparty run and hide here.

This line is already sneaking up to +14.5 at some books, which is more than high enough for me to think Penn State has some value.

Pick: Penn State +13 or Better

ESPN Bet Sportsbook is now another option to maximize your Penn State vs. Michigan State action. You can now use our ESPN BET promo code TANBONUS for a new user welcome.