Basketball Preview: Purdue at Penn State - February 5th - 7:00 pm - BTN

Can I interest you in an exciting opportunity to spend your Tuesday night watching some of the most fantastic basketball known to man?  Both teams have only gone 4 games without shooting higher than 40% from the field!  Could one of the teams actually break the streak and hit that elusive number tomorrow night? Can the visitors continue their trend of decreasing their loss margin by 60% per game?  Can the home team get their first win in the toughest conference in the nation and keep their .500 conference-record hopes alive?  So many questions to answer! Not interested yet?  What if I told you I can almost guarantee at least 5,000 people will be an attendance!  You won't want to miss it!

Oh, and you can switch over to ESPN to watch Ohio State/Michigan afterwards in case you want to see some ho-hum boring basketball between two top 10 teams.

Terone's a bit perplexed.

Why Purdue Will Win
Does anybody know what team is going to show up tomorrow night?  Purdue has a huge talent advantage in this one and has already blown out Penn State at home.  The Boilers held Penn State's big trio of D.J. Newbill, Jermaine Marshall, and Brandon "Half Court" Taylor to 10 for 39 from the field in their last meeting.  Really, if Purdue can hold those three to 35% or less, it's going to be very tough for Penn State to put up enough points to hang with the Boilermakers.

Why Penn State Will Win
The Nittany Lions aren't good at many things, but one thing they excel at is offensive rebounds.  We all know how Purdue struggles on the defensive boards, so expect Penn State to get plenty of second chance opportunities. Penn State hung around in their most recent game at Iowa, even though they lost the offensive rebound battle and committed 17 turnovers.  If they can limit the turnovers, expect this game to come down to the wire.

One thing you absolutely need to know before the game 
Penn State may be 0-9 in Big Ten play, but they do own a victory over a team that beat Purdue. Amazingly, the Nittany Lions knocked off Bucknell and handed them their first loss of the season.  The Bison still have an RPI of 57 - imagine what it would be if they had taken care of business in Happy Valley.

Our Picks - We like to think we're better than Vegas.  So throughout the season, we'll be "betting" a whole dollar amount versus the spread between $1 and $32, but we can't repeat the same value twice. The spread for this game is Purdue by 2.5 points.


Erik's Bet: $1
Erik's Pick: Purdue 62 - Penn State 59

Kirk's Bet: $8
Kirk's Pick: Purdue 68 - Penn State 61

Standings:
Erik +221 (17-7 Against The Spread)
Kirk -154 (9-15 Against The Spread)

Values already bet
Erik 1-7, 9-15, 17, 21, 23-28, 30-32
Kirk 8-32

BOILER UP!!!!

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