Julian Edlow provides his preview, prediction, and pick for Tuesday’s college basketball game between UNC and Miami.
North Carolina vs. Miami College Basketball prediction, preview
The Tar Heels are off a monster win at home on Saturday night in a rivalry game against Duke. North Carolina was an underdog in the game, and trailed the entire game … until 0.4 seconds remained. UNC ended the game on a 9-0 run, winning the game outright by three points as the buzzer. Not only was it an emotional victory for the Heels, but they had to overcome a 12-point halftime deficit to earn it.
Now Carolina heads on the road, where it’s 3-3 straight up and against the spread this season. While UNC has a notable win as a road underdog over Virginia, it has also played down to the competition and taken losses at Cal, Stanford and SMU. Miami is 12-2 at home on the season, but did recently take a bad home loss to Cal.
The Hurricanes have the better ranked defense on KenPom, and I expect them to be able to limit UNC in this game. Miami also has good size to crash the glass in this one, and those two factors should be what determine this game. North Carolina is on a nice run right now, but this is a classic letdown spot on the road, while Miami has a chance to get a signature win in the conference to help its March Madness chances.
At DraftKings Sportsbook, 76% of the tickets are coming in on North Carolina, as of Tuesday afternoon — information you can get constantly updated on DraftKings Network. Yet, Miami has 35% of the money to win the game, and the line has held strong all day. UNC should be a public side of the big win and moving up in the national rankings, but I’m siding with the home dog in this one.
CBB Pick: Miami +1.5 (-110)
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