Kentucky Mississippi State Betting - Mississippi State Tries To Make A Statement At Home

The Mississippi State Bulldogs are a very schizophrenic team this season, a reality which exists in accordance with their identity in past years. The good MSU must show up against Kentucky.

Kentucky Wildcats @ Mississippi State Bulldogs - Tuesday, February 21

Sports betting line: No line

Why Kentucky Will Win

When you do your homework and assess your sports bet on this game, it’s hard to deny how up-and-down and just plain unreliable the Mississippi State Bulldogs really are. This is a team that won on the road at Vanderbilt and scored neutral-court victories over Texas A&M and Arizona in New York in late November, but it’s also a team that lost at Ole Miss and gacked at home against Georgia this past weekend.

Mississippi State has Sweet 16 talent at the very least, and recruiting is generally not a problem for coach Rick Stansbury. However, the Bulldogs rarely if ever get their talent to mesh on the floor. They play disjointed and generally selfish basketball, and that’s how a team with such considerable talent can lose at home to a Georgia team that sits near the cellar of the Southeastern Conference. Mississippi State – or any other team for that matter – has to be relentlessly consistent to beat an opponent with the quality of Kentucky. Mississippi State has to grind on each and every possession, and more specifically, it has to deal with the quickness of Kentucky’s agile low-post performers.

Kentucky’s size can be neutralized by Mississippi State’s long frontline combination of Arnett Moultrie and Renardo Sidney, but UK’s footspeed is what will likely give the Wildcats a substantial advantage in this contest. Kentucky’s Anthony Davis should be able to do what he wants to on defense, and as long as that’s the case, the Wildcats should be in very good shape.

Why Mississippi State Will Win

The college basketball betting experts who follow the Southeastern Conference on a regular basis are aware of the fact that Kentucky is unbeaten in the SEC. They know that the Wildcats have set a very high standard this season and are virtually assured of a No. 1 seed in the upcoming NCAA Tournament. However, the people who understand sports betting also know that a team as good as Kentucky is still likely to lose once before March Madness begins. The season is too long, and teams face so many challenges on the road, that they’ll eventually have a bad game. Kentucky is the better team in this matchup, but the Wildcats might not have a full tank of motivation in this contest. It’s Mississippi State which will treat this game as its Super Bowl; the Bulldogs need to pull off the kind of achievement which will fuel their confidence before the SEC and NCAA Tournaments. The Bulldogs don’t have to win a best-of-seven-game series; they just have to win once, and that’s very possible on their home court at Humphrey Coliseum in Starkville, Mississippi.

Who Will Win

This could very easily turn into an upset, but the bottom line is that Mississippi State just isn’t consistent enough or dependable enough to be trusted with an upset pick. This game will be extremely close – probably a one-possession game – but Kentucky will do just enough to win on the road.