Big Ten Basketball: Buy or sell Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan State?

Michigan State: Sell – Bear Market

If this article would have been written prior to Michigan State Basketball‘s 70-62 loss to Wisconsin Basketball this take would be a whole lot hotter. At the moment the capitalization on the Spartans is low, which would be a great time to buy on a team, except things are going to get worse before they have a chance to get better.

The Spartan’s most impressive victories have come against teams whose stock is volatile in their own right. Their neutral site win over Connecticut and home wins versus Michigan and Wisconsin do not provide a lot of confidence. One should want to invest in the Spartans due to the fact that whatever success they do have will be a result of team play, the problem lies in the fact that Spartans do not do many things great as a team.

Their top three scorers average between 10 and 13 points each as a team they are ranked sixth in blocks, but their two other elite stats are percentages and are not as beneficial as they initially seem.

Their No. 9 ranked three-point percentage is led by Tyson Walker and Malik Hall has the Spartan connecting on over 39 percent of their three-pointers but as a team, they attempt slightly over 19 per game. The Spartans also excel from the line that is a little bit closer as they are successful on over 75 percent of their free throws but only attempt 18 per game.

The Spartans schedule is the greatest contributor to their downward trend. Their games that are winnable versus Ohio State, Iowa, and Michigan share the unfortunate coincidence of being away games while they will host Purdue and Illinois in games which you can mark as a loss regardless of where they are played.

The Spartans will enter the Big Ten Tournament as a five-seed that has no clear primary scoring option plus has difficulty defending the painted area against post players. If you already had stock in Michigan State it is time to sell.