Penn State Nittany Lions vs. Northwestern Wildcats: Prediction, Preview, Picks & Odds - 3/1/2023

Time: 9 p.m. ET

Venue: Welsh-Ryan Arena, Evanston, IL

Where to watch: Big Ten Network

DraftKings: Northwestern -3

FanDuel: Northwestern -3.5

BetMGM: NL

Caesars: Northwestern -3

Penn State: 17-12 (8-10 Big Ten)

Northwestern: 20-9 (11-7 Big Ten)

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For the love of God, the Northwestern Wildcats couldn’t give me one good day of fun and challenging Purdue for a conference title. Just one day, I would’ve enjoyed Northwestern to actually make a play for something and challenge the Big Ten. But alas, two losses drop them out of the top 25 and the darlings are no more. Instead, they’ll try to rebound at home against the Penn State Nittany Lions on Wednesday.

 

Northwestern cracked the top 25 after wins over Purdue and Iowa, then followed that with a 20-point win at home against Iowa. Then they hit the road and everything went flat. The Wildcats lost 66-62 at Illinois, then on Sunday, lost 75-59 to now second-place Maryland.

 

Chase Audige finished with 16 points, but the Northwestern offense was held to just 20 points in the second half while Maryland ran away with it. Brooks Barnhizer scored 11 points off the bench, and Northwestern was held to just 5 of 19 from the 3-point line.

 

“This league is hard. You play good teams,” Northwestern coach Chris Collins said. “We're not down in any way. We're still excited. We've got a big week coming up again, and you've just got to learn from these games and go home and try to make it right when you get another opportunity to play.”

 

Northwestern has covered in six of its last seven games and was even getting 7.5 points in consecutive games in both of those losses. I wouldn’t flip out after a couple of losses, considering the fact that they were on the road. Now if Northwestern starts losing at home, then we need to start having some discussions. Northwestern is locked in a four-way tie and two games back of Purdue to clinch the conference.

 

In short, that’s going to have to take a miracle and a gigantic Purdue collapse in order for that to happen.

 

Penn State is coming into this game after having its three-game winning streak end on Sunday in a 59-56 loss to Rutgers. The Nittany Lions had a 31-21 lead at halftime and of course choked against a very solid Rutgers team. Camren Wynter led the way with 16 points, but where the Lions really went wrong was Seth Lundy going 1 of 16 from the floor, 0 for 11 from 3-point range, and a whole bunch of bad. 

 

This is the kind of life the Nittany Lions are playing with right now. They are running to a serious issue of consistency, which has been the talk all year for them. They have gone 3-1-1 against the spread in their last five after failing to cover in three straight. But with losses like this one to Rutgers, that’s a game you have to have both on the books and outright; Penn State was a 4-point favorite.

 

An angry home team is never good, coupled with a hot crowd. Northwestern missed a big chance. This one won’t be. Northwestern 78, Penn State 70

Penn State is 13-5 ATS when the line is +3 to -3 the past three seasons.

Penn State is 8-2 ATS off a home conference loss the last 3 seasons.

Northwestern is 18-11 ATS in all games this season.

Northwestern is 12-6 ATS in conference games this season.

PG: Camren Wynter

SG: Andrew Funk

SF: Myles Dread

PF: Jalen Pickett

C: Seth Lundy

PG: Boo Buie

SG: Chase Audige

SF: Ty Berry

PF: Robbie Beran

C: Matt Nicholson