The ACC will battle in the Final Four Saturday night when the North Carolina Tar Heels (32-6) take on the Syracuse Orange (23-13). It's their third meeting of the NCAA Basketball season, and it comes with just two games left in the entire year.
Both teams come into this one hot straight up and against the spread. North Carolina has covered the spread as the favorite in seven of their last nine games, while Syracuse has covered as the underdog in four of their last six such matchups.
The Tar Heels are 9.5-point favorites tonight, and the over/under is a solid 144. Let's see how these two match up.
North Carolina is 19-18-1 ATS this year and 7-3 ATS in their last 10. They are 19-16-1 ATS as the favorite, but just 8-12-1 ATS when they're 9.5-point favorites or more. However, they just covered a 9.5-point spread against Notre Dame in their Elite Eight matchup, and they also covered the 11-point spread against Providence in their second round meeting.
The Tar Heels have averaged 89.3 points per game during the 2016 NCAA Tournament, but they'll face a Syracuse defense that has been lights out during the big dance. The Orange have allowed just 55.8 points per game in their four tournament games against Dayton, Middle Tennessee State, Gonzaga and Virginia.
Syracuse is 20-15 ATS this year, 9-6 ATS as the underdog and 3-2 ATS when they're nine-point (or more) underdogs. One of those was when they were 12.5-point underdogs against Carolina back in February.
UNC will be their toughest opponent yet in the tourney, and the Tar Heels scored a combined 159 points in their two regular season meetings.
Can the Orange slow down the only remaining No. 1 seed?
Maybe a little bit, but their stellar stretch of defense probably won't continue.
It's an interesting point in time for these two to meet considering UNC is scoring at will and Syracuse isn't letting anyone score, so for the sake of the tournament, let's say this Final Four matchup will find a happy medium in terms of those two extremes.
Suggested bets: Syracuse +5 for first half*, Syracuse +9.5 for game and the over @ 144
*Cuse was tied with UNC at the half for their first matchup this year and trailed by four in their second matchup.
Prediction: North Carolina 76, Syracuse 70
