I Fucking Hate Illinois For Not Letting Me Bet On The Under In Northwestern vs. Wisco Tonight, But Luckily Most Of You Can

I'm in a group chat with 2 close friends who happen to be, like me, fans of the Northwestern Wildcats. There are dozens of us out there. DOZENS!!! 

This morning, I woke up to this text this text from the night before after I was already zonked on the couch watching Netflix:

"NU is only +2.5 against Wisconsin tomorrow 👀"

Wtf? There's no way, right? Even though NU isn't THAT bad this year. Wisconsin is a top 10 team and Northwestern is…. Northwestern.

Sure, NU isn't THAT bad. They should absolutely be playing in the NIT and still have an outside shot at the tournament if it all clicks. But a top 10 Wisconsin team only favored by 2.5 against them? That CANNOT be right. No shot in hell.

I think it's a safe assumption that a lot of people saw that line and immediately threw a bag on Wisconsin. 

I don't blame you. I would have too if it weren't for Illinois being one of the very worst states in the Union not named Mississippi. But something STINKS about that line….

Checks Vegas Insider 

Yup. 94% of the public is on Wisconsin thus far. I know Vegas Insider is far from the end all/be all and not totally accurate, but they're accurate enough to use as a reference. Having said that, ya know what we got here? We got ourselves a rat line, folks…

…I think. There's still the chance that it's a double reverse rat line and UW is such an easy bet that you should hammer them, but I don't believe that to be the case for reasons I'll get to in a minute. That said, it's not outside the realm of possibility, so I'd only recommend a 1U play on NU with the points, assuming the line keeps moving in Wisconsin's favor. 

You see, I know more about NU hoops than just about anyone on the planet. That's not because I'm some basketball savant, that's because I'm one of the only people on earth who follows NU hoops in any matter at all. 

That's a sad state of existence, but it's true. The thing is, is that I've seen this movie 1000x before. NU has a good preseason, NU starts off B1G play like dog shit, NU beats a team they have no business playing. One could argue their win against 10th ranked MSU in East Lansing last week was that win, but I don't think so. I think it's right here, against Wisconsin, at home in sleepy Evanston, in front of 1500 rabid fans, 1200 of whom are fans of Wisco. 

Now, NU's best player Pete Nance (son of Larry, brother of Larry Jr.) is out. Typically that would be a (really) bad thing for any team, but I say this with 99% certainty - NU will do everything in their power to slow this game down to a snail's pace and force late shots, all while looking for late buckets themselves. I'm talking a stereotypical 60-59ish, "last team to possess the ball has a chance at a W" Big 10 basketball game that is insurmountably boring to watch. That's exactly what they did against MSU last week and that's exactly what they're going to try to do against Wisco today. NU isn't ever any good at basketball, but under Chris Collins, they've perfected the art of mucking games up and getting gritty when they can't rely on talent to win games. 

Advertisement

With Nance out, that's their only option. Cats' head coach Chris Collins has done this a TON over the years in order to stay in games and though he has his warts as a coach, he's been really effective deploying this strategy. I try to stay away from these sort of posts because we have 1 billion people throwing picks at you, but THE UNDER in tonight's game is my favorite play of the year, regardless of sport.

It's currently around 140. I think it hits by at least 10. Probably closer to 15-17 or so. Here are my official plays:

* If the news of Nance being out moves the line to -4 or more, bet NU
* BET THE UNDER.

Responsibly and within your financial means, of course. But yes - if Illinois didn't suck ass, I'd be making my largest play of the year on the under tonight… and by largest play, I mean like $250 that I'd be irate once this blog turns out to be a bunch of bullshit and Wisconsin wins 82-68. I think I'm required to say that this bet isn't a guarantee and to not bet unless you are doing it for entertainment and all that but I really, truly love this bet in every single way. 

Real talk though - This is one of those "just trust me" posts. I love this bet so much that I just took 30 mins out of my day to compose a ~700 word blog on it. If that doesn't tell you I love a bet, nothing will. I really, really like the under tonight though. Love it, actually. So long as you're not in Illinois, bet it on the Barstool Sportsbook: