Rutgers vs. Wisconsin basketball best bets for Saturday, February 18 (Badgers get another big home win)

Wisconsin basketball is firmly on the NCAA Tournament bubble and needs all the help they can get after alternating wins and losses in their last four games. However, the team avoided a disaster by holding onto beat Michigan on Tuesday, despite not making a field goal in the final 10 minutes.

The Badgers host Rutgers on Saturday afternoon at the Kohl Center with a chance to notch another Quad 1 win in Big Ten play. Struggling amidst injuries, Rutgers are losers of three straight since wing Mawot Mag went down with a season-ending injury.

Here are the odds for this projected close, low-scoring affair:

Rutgers vs. Wisconsin spread, total, money line, and ATS records

Opening up at Wisconsin minus 1.5, the spread is now minus one.

The total opened up at 123 and reached as high as 125 before settling in at the current 124.5.

Each team is minus 110 on the money line, meaning that you would need to wager $110 in order to win $100.

Rutgers enters the matchup sporting both a regular season record and Against The Spread (ATS) record of 16-10. Wisconsin has a 15-10 regular season mark but only 11-14 ATS.

Rutgers’s games have gone over the total 11 times in 26 contests. Wisconsin’s O/U record is 13-12.

Rutgers vs. Wisconsin prediction and pick

This game is going to be a grind with both teams in a race to get to 60 points. Both teams play at an incredibly methodical pace and neither team is adept at generating isolation buckets. However, I’m going to give the edge to the home court in a more desperate spot. Rutgers has had a ton of struggles on the road this season, they see the third biggest away from home drop off in the country, per Haslametrics.

Rutgers is built on their defensive identity, but the offense is holding them back and now they don’t have one of their key contributors in Mag for the rest of the year. Wisconsin’s offense has fallen off in conference play, they are shooting more than four percent worse from three-point range, but the team is third in the country in limiting turnovers.

In a game that the Badgers simply need to win, I’m going to trust them at home to get the job done.