The Bryant Bulldogs take on the Michigan State Spartans in the NCAA Tournament. Tip-off is set for 10 p.m. ET on TBS.
Michigan State is favored by 17 points on the spread with a moneyline of -2200. The total is set at 152.5 points.
Here are my Bryant vs. Michigan State predictions and college basketball picks for March 21, 2025.
Bryant vs Michigan State Prediction
My Pick: Bryant 1H +10.5 (Play to +10)
My Bryant vs Michigan State best bet is on the Bulldogs to cover the first-half spread, with the best odds currently available at DraftKings. For all of your college basketball bets, find the best lines using our live NCAAB odds page.
Bryant vs Michigan State Odds, Lines
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- Bryant vs Michigan State spread: Michigan State -17
- Bryant vs Michigan State over/under: 152.5 points
- Bryant vs Michigan State moneyline: Michigan State -2200, Bryant +1100
- Bryant vs Michigan State best bet: Bryant 1H +10.5 (Play to +10)
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My Bryant vs Michigan State NCAAB Betting Preview
Bryant profiles like a team built to make a Cinderella run in March.
The Bulldogs are chock-full of size, length and athleticism. They rank sixth nationally in average height (79.1 inches), with all five starters standing over 6-foot-6.
They have a unique combination of wing and forward talent.
Do-it-all 6-foot-6 superstar Earl Timberlake is one of the nation’s best point forwards. America East Newcomer of the Year Barry Evans crushes the boards and is elite off the bounce. Rafael Pinzon is an elite shot-creator and marksman. And the center rotation of Kvonn Cramer and Keyshawn Mitchell is super bouncy.
All these guys can handle the rock, take you off the bounce, dish it, defend one-on-one, block shots, and most of them can shoot.
Head coach Phil Martelli Jr. has done an excellent job of leveraging the team’s length and athleticism in the right ways — specifically, verticality and switchability.
Bryant obliterates the offensive boards and never turns the ball over, so the Bulldogs are shot-volume monsters.
They leverage dribble hand-off sets to find isolation mismatches, and they live in transition, where they can leverage their speed, size and athleticism in the open court.
They switch everything on defense and isolation funnel into a massive drop where everyone swarms the paint and blocks shots like crazy.
On one hand, there’s a lot to like about this matchup with Michigan State.
Sparty is super rim-reliant on both ends of the court, and Tom Izzo-led teams like to play up and down. So, Bryant should be comfortable in this game script — i.e., the Bulldogs can run the floor and muck it up at the rim both ways.
Furthermore, Michigan State is due for negative shooting regression on defense. Conference opponents shot 26% from deep against the Spartans on super high volume — ShotQuality projects that number should be closer to 34% based on the “quality” of looks allowed.
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Bryant doesn’t shoot much, but the Bulldogs have shooters across the floor. Somebody has to make some triples against Sparty; why not Pinzon, Withers and Evans?
The key guy to watch here is Mitchell. He’s been playing out of his mind lately, averaging 15 points, 12 rebounds and three stocks per game over his past six.
Specifically, he’s been stepping out and hitting triples lately, shooting 6-for-11 from 3 during that stretch.
That’s huge. Bryant’s half-court offense often gets caught up sprinting into the mid-range and pulling up for hook shots or runners, and limited spacing crowds the lanes, making that job much more demanding.
But if Mitchell is out there pulling big men away from the rim, everything opens up just a tad more.
Finally, as mentioned, Bryant’s defense will switch everything and isolation-funnel. That’s not a good thing for Sparty, which rarely works in isolation (two possessions per game, seventh percentile, per Synergy) and is super inefficient when doing so (.54 PPP, 362nd nationally, per Synergy).
On the other hand, there’s a lot to hate about this matchup with Sparty.
Simply put, Michigan State does everything Bryant does, but better.
Sparty is a dominant two-way rebounding team, and they own the rim on both ends of the court. The last time Bryant played a team like that, St. John’s ripped the Bulldogs apart in the rebounding (44-30), turnover (19-13), and paint points battle (54-42) in a 22-point win.
The Spartans should also win the transition battle.
Izzo-led teams are always elite in transition and transition-denial. Meanwhile, Bryant is inefficient in transition (.99 PPP, 21st percentile, per Synergy) and poor in transition-denial (14 transition possessions per game allowed, 71st-most nationally, per Synergy).
Michigan State is also an elite dribble handoff defense (.57 PPP allowed, 98th percentile, per Synergy) that can switch all of Bryant’s actions and neutralize any mismatch hunting.
On the other end of the court, Sparty’s isolation numbers are likely undervalued because they finally found a true one-on-one shot-creator in Jase Richardson.
His emergence as an alpha guard is exactly what Michigan State needs to beat Bryant’s defense, especially because crafty guards can give the Bulldogs fits at the basket — UMBC’s guards did in both regular-season America East meetings.
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Finally, although Bryant can play its game, Michigan State will be just as comfortable in this uptempo, rim-reliant game script. I suspect that leads to Sparty eventually leaning on Bryant as the game progresses.
That said, I think Michigan State might be shocked by the pure size, length, speed, physicality and versatility of this lowly 15-seed, and Sparty could struggle to adjust in the early going.
Michigan State has also often been a slow starter this year while dominating in the second half — because the Spartans often lean on teams with their rim dominance and shot-volume advantages.
I also hope that Bryant can hit a few early triples against a Michigan State team begging for regression — specifically, Pinzon and Mitchell.
That’s what happened when the Bulldogs played St. John’s in the nonconference. The Johnnies led by just four at the break despite Timberlake getting scratched late and sitting.
Instead, the Bulldogs hit four first-half triples, and our guy Mitchell had a huge game, going for 21 points, 12 boards (including seven offensive) and two stocks on 8-for-12 shooting (including 2-for-4 from deep).
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I’m going to bank on something similar happening on Friday night in the NCAA Tournament.
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