The last time the Wisconsin Badgers faced off against the Iowa Hawkeyes, the Badgers ran Iowa out of the gym. They beat them 116-85 in a game that was never even close and led to Kamari McGee saying after the game that the Hawkeyes didn't even want to play defense. Iowa hasn't forgotten that remark and is looking forward to the rematch. Will it be different this time? ESPN BPI isn't convinced it will be.
ESPN BPI predicts a decisive road win for Wisconsin over Iowa
ESPN BPI uses a complicated outcome to predict every game in the season, and as the results come in, it adjusts and continues to predict. It goes all the way to the national championship game (which, as of now, Wisconsin has a 0.5% chance of winning). For this game against the Iowa Hawkeyes, even though it's on the road, the Badgers are favored to win and the percentage of confidence is at 61.9%. This is ESPN BPI's way of saying it should be decisive.
There are a couple of obvious reasons why ESPN BPI may have factored a decisive win into the scenario for the game today. The first is that huge win that already happened earlier this season when the Badgers dominated the Hawkeyes. The second reason is that Iowa just lost their best player for the season, Owen Freeman.
Wisconsin is favored to beat Iowa according to FanDuel at -3.5
The FanDuel odds also favor the Badgers and are currently sitting at -3.5. With the over/under at 163.5, the game could be pretty high-scoring, according to oddsmakers. If you do the math for this, the predicted outcome according to these two odds is somewhere around 84-80. This isn't as high-scoring as the first time they met, but it seems the Hawkeyes are planning to play defense this time. They were clearly upset about that comment last time.