On Sunday, March 28, Mississippi State and Memphis will battle for the NIT Championship at the Comerica Center in Frisco, Texas.
It's not quite the same as being crowned the champion of March Madness, but both of these teams will be looking to cap the season with a great accomplishment nonetheless.
Who will come out on top and earn the right to be called champions? Keep reading our free Mississippi State vs. Memphis picks and predictions, with tip-off scheduled for 12:00 p.m. ET.
Mississippi State vs Memphis odds
Sharp money and line movement report
By Patrick EversonPointsBet USA opened Memphis as a 4-point favorite Saturday evening and got to -5 just a few minutes ago. As of 11 a.m. ET, the Tigers are landing 82 percent of spread bets and 87 percent of spread money. The total bounced between 135.5 and 135 and is currently at the latter. "Sixty percent of bets on the Over, but 71 percent of handle on the Under," PointsBet's Mike Korn said.
Check out the full line movement for this gameMississippi State Bulldogs vs Memphis Tigers betting preview
Injuries
Mississippi State: Tolu Smith F (Questionable).
Memphis: Alex Lomax G (Questionable).
Find our latest NCAA basketball injury reports.
Betting trend to know
The Tigers are 14-2 ATS in their last 16 games. Find more NCAA betting trends for Mississippi State vs. Memphis.
Against the spread (ATS) pick
Everything was clicking for Memphis in a 90-67 victory over Colorado State on Saturday. The Tigers shot 55.7 percent from the floor and 51.9 percent from deep, and if they repeat that shooting they will basically be impossible to beat.
Memphis has the best adjusted defensive efficiency in all of college basketball (per KenPom), so even a decent offensive performance puts the team in a good position to win. Landers Nolley II and Lester Quinones combined to score 45 in the win over Colorado State, and the two of them were 11 of 18 from behind the 3-point line.
This Tigers team isn’t reliable offensively but with the way they’re playing, they should be able to get it going against Mississippi State. The Bulldogs are just 48th in the country in adjusted defensive efficiency, so they’re not exactly a lock-you-down type of group.
Also, Mississippi State does not take good care of the basketball. Turnovers can haunt you against a team like Memphis, as the Tigers play the passing lanes and get their hands on a lot of balls. If the Bulldogs can’t clean things up, Memphis will turn a ton of those mistakes into easy buckets on the other end of the floor.
Also, it’s unlikely that Iverson Molinar and D.J. Stewart Jr. combine to score 48 points again. The two of them couldn’t miss against Louisiana Tech, and it’s more likely that they’re somewhere closer to the 33 points per game they combined to average on the year. The same might apply to Nolley and Quinones, but the Tigers have more than enough options that can pick up the slack against a team that doesn’t play great defense.
PREDICTION: Memphis -4.5 (-110)
Over/Under pick
The Tigers aren’t going to pop off for 90 points in this game, and the Bulldogs aren’t going to go for 84 either. Both of them were scorching hot in their last games, and they faced teams that just weren’t ready to handle their talent levels.
Now, both of these teams will clash, and nobody will have any sort of physical mismatch here. These are two NCAA Tournament-caliber teams, and the intensity should be through the roof here.
While this isn’t as important to these players as the Big Dance, it’s still a championship game and these players will all have a lot of adrenaline. That will lead to some solid defensive effort, and it will also mean some misses on the offensive end.
PREDICTION: Under 135.5 (-110)
Mississippi State vs Memphis betting card
- Memphis -4.5 (-110)
- Under 135.5 (-110)
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