#841/842 ASA TOP PLAY ON 10* Under 140 Points – Michigan State vs Marquette, Sunday at 5:15 PM ET - We were on the Under in the 1st round game Vermont vs Marquette and we’ll stick with that in today’s Golden Eagles match up with Michigan State. After giving up 94 points to St Johns in their home finale (a 96-94 Marquette win), the Golden Eagles knew they had to focus on playing much better defense to have a chance to succeed in the Big East tourney and then the NCAA tourney. They took the 94 points allowed to heart facing St Johns again just a few days later in the Big East tournament. They held the Johnnies to just 61 points in regulation improving by their defense by 33 points in the span of just a few days. Marquette followed that up by holding UConn to 68 points and then completely shut down Xavier to 51 points in the Big East final. In Friday’s NCAA opener they limited Vermont to 61 points on 0.97 PPP. All 4 of those defensive efforts were impressive and this Golden Eagle team is locked in on that end of the court right now. After struggling defensively their final few games of the regular season, MSU head coach Tom Izzo made it clear to his team they needed to pick it up on that end of the court. They took that to heart and held a good USC offense that averages 73 PPG to just 62 points on Friday. Even after the game Izzo stressed how his team won because they played better defense. Both defenses force opponents into long possessions with Marquette opponents taking 18.7 seconds per possession (7th best in the nation) and MSU opponents taking 18.3 seconds per possession (38th). MSU ranks 37th nationally in defensive efficiency and while Marquette struggled early in the season on that end of the court, they actually rank 22nd in defensive efficiency since February 1st. Offensively Marquette likes to play fast although they’ve slowed down considerably as of late. They’ve averaged just 68 PPG in regulation in the post season (conference & NCAA) and MSU will slow this game down (Sparty 304th in adjusted tempo). Neither team is great at offensive rebounding (both ranked outside the top 220) and neither scores many points from the FT line (both outside the top 300 in % of points from the charity stripe). We project this game to land in the mid 130’s and we love the value on the Under.