By Charles Jay
They may not be another college basketball rivalry like it anywhere. And there are usually Atlantic Coast Conferencing implications when the Duke Blue Devils and the North Carolina Tar Heels get together. They will tip it off at 8 PM ET on ESPN, and in this one, Duke is the home team at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
Remember that America’s Bookie customers will have the opportunity to take advantage of two “Live Betting” options in the sportsbook interface.
Duke has won three games in a row after suffering a defeat at the hands of North Carolina State, but they need to climb in the rankings. Currently they are 18th in the Associated Press poll and 19th with the Coaches. North Carolina is the seventh -ranked team in the nation according to the coaches and #8 in the AP rankings.
What’s kind of astounding about this series is that over the last 96 meetings, they have not only split with 48 victories apiece, but they have also scored the exact same number of points against each other over that long stretch.
In the college basketball betting odds posted on this game, Duke is the favorite:
Duke Blue Devils -2
North Carolina Tar Heels +2
Over 163 points -110
Under 163 points -110
In this game, Duke, which has the smaller, quicker lineup, will be trying to overcome the size of North Carolina. The Tar Heels can come at their opponents with a couple of big people who could do some damage down low. We’re talking about 6-10 Kennedy Meeks and 6-9 Isaiah Hicks, both of whom contribute greatly to the Heels being the top offensive rebounding team in the nation, pulling down almost 43% of all available caroms. Duke is not bad from the defensive rebounding standpoint, but they are not elite either. So it’s quite possible that Coach K is going to have to put a couple of big people in the lineup himself. There is no question that they have the horses to do it; Harry Giles and Marques Bolden have logged plenty of playing time, and they could join Jayson Tatum, who had 19 points and 14 rebounds in a recent victory over Notre Dame.
Another concern here is the speed with which North Carolina likes to play. They are currently 35th in the nation in Adjusted Tempo, according to the analytics site KenPom.com, and since Duke is not the type of team to play the slow-down game, it will be interesting to see if they change styles a little in order to thwart when UNC likes to do. It might not be a bad idea if they can get back on defense and force North Carolina into a half-court battle, because Duke has been very good at defending the three-pointer, yielding only 30% from beyond the arc. Perhaps neither of these teams is going to do a lot of damage with the triple; Joel Berry is the only big threat on that end for the Tar Heels (42.2%) while Luke Kennard is almost 46% accurate for Duke. But as a percentage of total points, neither of these teams really thrives on the trey; in fact, neither of them is in the Top 200.
Our feeling is that Duke will go “big” and cut into what North Carolina likes to do. They really don’t have a whole lot of choice, in considering what we think is a reasonable number, going with the home team here seems judicious, as the Charles Jay/America’s Bookie Challenge continues on Thursday night.
The post Can Duke Win “Big” in Battle of Tobacco Road? appeared first on Ask The Bookie.