The Missouri Valley Conference kicks off its conference tournament season with a pair of afternoon games on Thursday, the second being the No. 5 seed Illinois State Redbirds playing the No. 12 seed Missouri State Bears in the first round of the 2025 Missouri Valley Conference Tournament. Illinois State went 18-13 overall, including 10-10 in the conference this season. Missouri State went 9-22, 2-18 MVC. The Redbirds won both of their head-to-head meetings this year.

Tip-off is set for 3:30 p.m. ET on Thursday from the Enterprise Center in St. Louis, Mo. Illinois State is favored by 5.5 points in the latest Missouri State vs. Illinois State odds, while the over/under is 132.5 points per SportsLine consensus. The Redbirds are -247 (risk $247 to win $100) money line favorites, while the Bears are +200 (risk $100 to win $200) underdogs.

Before entering any Missouri State vs. Illinois State picks, you'll want to see the college basketball predictions from the model at SportsLine.

The model simulates every Division 1 college basketball game 10,000 times. It enters Week 18 of the 2024-25 season on a 221-162 roll (+1895) on all top-rated college basketball picks dating back to 2023. Anyone following could have seen HUGE returns!

The model has simulated Missouri State vs. Illinois State 10,000 times and the results are in. We can tell you that the model is leaning Over, and it also says one side of the spread hits over 50% of the time!

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