Point Spread: Michigan Slight Favorite in Revved-Up Showdown With Indiana

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — As soon as the Big Ten basketball schedules came out, this Indiana-Michigan gane got circled by everyone involved. And with good reason.

This is been one of the best rivalries in the league for decades, but it takes on a more personal feel this year because of first-year Michigan coach Dusty May, who’s an Indiana graduate and a former student manager during Bob Knight’s last four years as head coach in Bloomington.

May, who took Florida Atlantic to the Final Four in 2023, is one of the hot young coaches in the country and Indiana, a mess the last two years, announced Friday that it is moving on from Mike Woodson during his fourth season. So it will be a revved-up environment at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall on Saturday afternoon. The game starts at 1 p.m. ET and is nationally televisedf by CBS. (Link to our ”How to Watch” story is below.)

Indiana has lost six of its last seven games, and is an underdog again. Michigan is a 2.5-point favorite according to the oddsmaker at the FanDuel.com gambling website. The over/under is 152.5

Indiana won its first 10 home games this season, but has lost its last two to Illinois and Maryland. With only eight games remaining — five at home — this is a must win for the Hoosiers if they want to keep their postseason hopes alive.

Here’s what we know so far about how Indiana and Michigan have fared against the point spread this season.

UPDATE … Michigan is 17-5 on the season, and 9-2 in Big Ten games. Purdue and Michigan State also have two losses. The Wolverines have been ranked as high as No. 14 in the country, but have also dropped out of top-25 twice, too.

Michigan is 4-2 on the road in the Big Ten, and they’ve got two of the best wins away from home, knocking off ranked teams Wisconsin and UCLA. Indiana just got blitzed at Wisconsin on Tuesday, so we all know how hard it is to win in Madison. The Wolverines have done. They’ve lost at Minnesota in overtimne and got blitzed by 27 at Purdue. That’s a much different environment than Assembly Hall, though.

Michigan is 11-11 against the spread, which the oddsmakers have to love. They haven’t covered lately, though, failing six straight times despite going 4-2 straight up.

Here’s what the Wolverines have done this season, both straight up and against the spread.