Tuesday NCAA: No. 5 Michigan State (19-3) at No. 16 Wisconsin (16-5)

You can throw out the rankings tonight when No. 5 Michigan State visits No. 16 Wisconsin, because the Spartans, no matter how good they are in any particular year, never seem to win in Madison.

And in fact the Badgers are 2-point betting favorites on WagerWeb.com’s NCAA basketball odds.

MSU has won 10 games in a row, is the lone team without a conference loss in the Big Ten and has a three-game lead over a group that includes Wisconsin. But the Spartans haven’t won at UW’s Kohl Center since 2001. In fact, Wisconsin has won four of the past six overall against MSU and is 3-0 at home against ranked teams this season, not to mention on a 17-game winning streak there. But Michigan State, which has only played in Madison a few times since 2001, has won 12 of its last 13 Big Ten road contests for the first time in school history. The home team has won the last nine meetings in this series when played on campus (i.e. throw out the Big Ten Tournament or NCAA Tournament meetings).

These two have met once this year, a monstrously ugly 54-47 victory for State in East Lansing. Expect a similarly low-scoring game between defensive-minded physical teams.

MSU beat Michigan and Northwestern last week led by Durrell Summers, who was named Big Ten Player of the Week after averaging 17 points and 10 rebounds. Over the last five games, point guard Kalin Lucas is averaging 17.6 points, topping 20 points in three games, including a season-high 23 in his last game vs. Northwestern. The Spartans are 17-1 when out-rebounding an opponent, but 2-2 when failing to do so this season

Badgers star point guard Trevon Hughes scored just nine points in a 60-57 loss to Purdue last week (UW’s only game), missing all five of his 3-point attempts while going 3 of 11 from the field and 3 of 8 from the free-throw line. He’ll need to probably outplay MSU’s Lucas for the Badgers to pull the upset. But Hughes is shooting 26.1 percent from the field and 25 percent from 3-point range while scoring just 19 points total in two straight losses to MSU. Wisconsin also won’t have forward and second-leading scorer Jon Leuer, who is still sidelined indefinitely with a broken wrist.

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