A pair of wins at the Battle 4 Atlantis put the Michigan Wolverines back on track after a couple bad losses in a row to Xavier and Connecticut. Now, Big Blue is going to be an underdog in its first true road test of the year against the North Carolina State Wolfpack.
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HOW THE MICHIGAN WOLVERINES CAN COVER THE SPREAD
It's easy to say that the Wolverines just flat out have to shoot the ball well in this game, but that's really the huge key. The team shot 58 percent from the floor against Texas in its biggest win of the season in the Bahamas, and it needed every single one of those made baskets.
More specifically though, Michigan really needs someone aside from Caris LeVert to step up when it comes to shouldering the scoring load. LeVert's two best games this year in terms of quantity came in defeats, and when this team is more well-rounded it has a better shot to succeed.
The pieces to the puzzle are here in Ann Arbor, too. Derrick Walton Jr., Duncan Robinson, Aubrey Dawkins and Zak Irvin are all capable of double-digit scoring games night in and night out, and they're going to have to be good, if not spectacular in this one to give the Wolverines any chance of an upset.
HOW THE NORTH CAROLINA STATE WOLFPACK CAN COVER THE SPREAD
Michigan has let teams knock down 36.0 percent of their attempted threes this year, and the Wolfpack have to take advantage of that in this case. You know that there's going to be a certain energy inside the building at PNC Arena with all of the kids being back on campus after the Thanksgiving break, but all of that tends to lead to superstars trying to do superhuman things.
Cat Barber can do just that; he put up 37 against Winthrop last time out on Friday as proof. However, the guard just has to be better than he has been with his shot selection. Sure, averaging 21.0 points per game is nice, but he's shooting just 34.1 percent from the field and has yet to hit a three this year on seven attempts.
The Wolfpack also badly have to stay out of foul trouble. They really only have seven healthy bodies in their rotation, something that you don't normally see out of a team this early in the year, but with Terry Henderson out through at least the beginning of ACC play, NCSU is in a lot of trouble with its depth.
ANALYSIS AND ODDS PREDICTION
These two teams are both going to be sneaky come March as we see it, but we think home court advantage is going to be the difference here.
Barber is bound to start making some outside shots at some point, and there's enough depth on the inside with Beejay Anja and Lennard Freeman to give the Wolverines some trouble on the glass.
It's going to take a truly awesome effort for Big Blue to go on the road and win a game like this one, and we don't see it happening at this point.
North Carolina State 74, Michigan 68
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