Kentucky vs Mississippi State prediction, odds, pick for College Basketball
01/10/2025 06:45 PM
It’s time to continue our College Basketball odds series with a Kentucky-Mississippi State prediction and pick. Find out how to watch Kentucky-Mississippi State.
There are so many really good games on this college basketball Saturday. One is this SEC showdown between Kentucky and Mississippi State.
Kentucky just got clobbered by Georgia. The Wildcats did not come especially close to winning. Georgia was steadily able to maintain a working margin in the second half. Kentucky never made a really big push. It was a very flat effort from the Cats after they beat Florida 106-100 last Saturday in one of the best and most interesting games of the college basketball season. As we know, the SEC has a realistic chance of getting 11 to 13 teams in the NCAA Tournament. Some would lean to the lower-end number, but even if that is the actual number of teams in the Big Dance, 11 is still a huge haul for a power conference. The SEC has a lot of Final Four contenders, several more Sweet 16 contenders, and a number of teams that have a better-than-even chance of making March Madness. Kentucky is obviously talented enough to beat a top-tier team such as Florida, but it will have to deal with mid-level SEC teams such as Georgia on the road. It failed that test this past week. That’s a big part of why this road trip to Starkville to face Mississippi State is so interesting.
Kentucky needs to show it can win on the road in a tough league. Coach Mark Pope needs to respond to the Georgia game by getting the most out of his players against Mississippi State. If Kentucky consistently loses on the road, what could be a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament will become a No. 3 or 4 seed two months from now. The value of this game is obvious to Big Blue for a lot of reasons.
Mississippi State has thumped its first few SEC opponents, scoring decisive wins over South Carolina and Vanderbilt. However, South Carolina and Vanderbilt are not high-end SEC teams. They are in the lowest third of the 16-team conference. This Kentucky game is the high-end challenge which will show us where Mississippi State stands. The reasonable view of MSU — maybe not the consensus view, but the majority view — is that the Bulldogs are a solid NCAA Tournament team with some upside. Are they ready to actually compete for the conference championship, though? We don’t really know the answer to that question just yet. We need to gather more information. This game against Kentucky should give us the first real sense of how good this team is and how high it can climb. That’s why this game is such a delicious confrontation.
Here are the Kentucky-Mississippi State College Basketball Odds, courtesy of FanDuel
College Basketball Odds: Kentucky-Mississippi State Odds
Kentucky: +4.5 (-115)
Moneyline: +152
Mississippi State: -4.5 (-105)
Moneyline: -184
Over: 161.5 (-110)
Under: 161.5 (-110)
How to Watch Kentucky vs Mississippi State
Time: 8:30 p.m. ET/5:30 p.m. PT
TV: SEC Network
*Watch college basketball LIVE with fuboTV (Get Access | Save $30)*
Why Kentucky Will Cover The Spread/Win
Should Kentucky be a 4.5-point underdog against an opponent which is clearly good but has not yet shown us it is great? This is giving a lot of respect to MSU, and we’re not sure the Bulldogs have earned that level of respect right now.
Why Mississippi State Will Cover The Spread/Win
Kentucky’s bad performance on the road at Georgia makes it easy to go with Mississippi State here. Kentucky might be soft on the road.
Final Kentucky-Mississippi State Prediction & Pick
Our lean is to Kentucky, but our official recommendation is to sit back and wait for the right live-play angle.
Final Kentucky-Mississippi State Prediction & Pick: Kentucky +4.5
The post Kentucky vs Mississippi State prediction, odds, pick for College Basketball appeared first on ClutchPoints.
