Michigan State basketball: Spartans enter Big Ten Tournament as co-favorites

The Michigan State basketball team enters the Big Ten Tournament as co-favorites with Purdue according to betting odds. Michigan ranks third.

When the Michigan State Spartans take the Madison Square Garden floor at the Big Ten Tournament this week, they will do so as co-favorites to win the whole thing. That comes as no surprise considering they earned the conferences number one seed and won the regular season title outright.

But the odds don’t always go according to seed. The Spartans are tied with third-seeded Purdue as 7/5 favorites to earn the Big Ten’s automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. Checking in third in the odds are the Michigan Wolverines, who are seeded fifth, at 9/2. Second-seed Ohio State has the fourth-best odds at 6/1.

Everyone else is a longer shot of at least 18/1, with the ability to bet on any single team only going ten deep. If you’re a believer in Rutgers, Minnesota, Illinois or Iowa making a miracle run, you get all four at 50/1.

Here are the full 2018 Big Ten Tournament odds, via Covers on Twitter.

Michigan became the lowest seed to ever win the Big Ten Tournament last season when they won four games in four days as the eight seed to claim the crown. Prior to that, only the Iowa Hawkeyes in 2001 had won the tournament as anything lower than a four seed. Iowa was a six seed that season.

The Big Ten Tournament has been won by the top seed eight times in the 20-year history of the event. Two seeds have claimed seven tournament championships (including 2002, later vacated by Ohio State), three seeds have won it twice and the lone win by a four seed was Michigan in the inaugural Big Ten Tournament in 1998 (later vacated).

Of course, these odds are for purely entertainment purposes only.

Next: 2018 Big Ten Tournament bracket is set

The 2018 Big Ten Tournament gets underway Wednesday evening with a pair of games between the bottom four seeds. Play continues Thursday with seeds 5-10 getting their first conference tournament action, then the top four seeds enter the bracket after double bye in the quarterfinals to be played on Friday. All games up until Saturdays semifinals and Sunday’s final will be televised on Big Ten Network. Games Saturday and Sunday will be on CBS.