Northwestern at Illinois

The No. 25 ranked Wildcats are getting 8 points here. I love it. This is their first ranking in 41 years and there seems to be some non-believers still out there as they are a big dog to an unranked team here. But, Northwestern is better than they are getting credit for and I think this line is off by a couple of buckets. On top of it, Northwestern is playing with revenge here. These teams met last season (back in February of this year) in Evanston. Northwestern led that game 57-43 late in the second half, but ended up losing by 1 point. So we'll have a motivated Wildcats team here out to avenge that loss, and prove that they are deserving of their ranking. Northwestern is 10-1 (3-0 on the road) thanks to great defense as they have allowed just 58.9 per game. Illinois can score and they are tough at home, but there's no reason Northwestern can't hang here. Bruce Weber led teams are just 7-20 ATS at home after back-to-back ATS losses. I like the Wildcats in this one.