2015 WP: 70%
2016 WP: 62%
2017 Record: 1-2 (+ 0-1 Bills Team Total)
The pick:
Wisconsin +3 over Purdue
(The write-ups will get more substantive as the record improves so let's shoot from the hip for now).
4-1 ATS this year capping individual Purdue games in College Football not that it has anything to do with this. But unlike it's football team, this basketball team is everything the football team wasn't.
Who is dominating or blowing out Wisconsin right now? No one. And what team can you say will do that? No one.
It's because this team returned it's entire core of Happ, Showalter, Koenig, Brown and Hayes. So you really get all the experience back from a team barely knocked off by ND last year (a game I posted to win posted plays 9 in a row).
But they also shored up their bench a bit D'Mitrick Trice is shooting 54% from 3 (19-36) and Khalil Iverson gives them solid minutes off the bench.
This team is so sound defensively allowing 58.8 pts per game vs. Purdue's 64.4. Happ will at a minimum, be somewhat of a force against Purdue's Swanigan, the star of the show here. Happ does shoot 67% from the floor after all.
Just give it the eye test. Wisconsin is famous for lulling the other team to sleep with a grind it out style in the half court that I just don't see Purdue being at the level RIGHT NOW to be giving out 3 here. +3 means they MUST win by 4. That's asking a lot in this game which should be very, very tight.
I loved Wisky's win over a very desperate Indiana team last game out jumping out to a 12-0 and eventually putting them away by 7 (and knocking them out of the top 25). Great win and it gets a nod over Purdue's win at OSU in their last game (also impressive but not on the same level imo and they won by a single FT).
Purdue and Wisky have both fallen to all top competition they've faced but Purdue's is a bit more glaring losing to Villanova, Louisville and Minnesota: teams with a combined 40-6 record. And now you have Wisky coming to your building right in the middle of that pack at 13-2.
We don't have to win with 3 here. And this game could very well be decided by a bucket or 1 or even 3 which would push us out. And Wisky can definitely win outright. This is very tough spot for an emerging Purdue team in a game that will serve as the tie-breaker in the conference tournament.
I'll take every point, a starting 5 playing superbly, well-coached with nice pieces off the bench and a team on an 8 game win streak.
Surprisingly, playing at Purdue has been a house of horrors for Wisky who is only 4-38 there. But this Wisconsin team, with the eye test, impresses me a bit more, is not intimidated by anyone right now, home or road and we get a nice chunk here. All their pieces are clicking at the right time, hence the winning streak. Have to go with Wisky in one of the great CBB games of the year overshadowed by Football. College kids are still on winter break so you don't get the full impact of home court either @ Purdue.