North Carolina State vs. North Carolina Line – January 26

Written by:
Carrie Stroup
Published on:
Jan/26/2012
North Carolina State vs. North Carolina Line – January 26

Carrie Stroup here with your North Carolina State vs. North Carolina line for tonight’s College Basketball.  For updated lines on this and all other games be sure to visit Sportsbook.com and start betting online today.  Claim up to $250 FREE based on your initial deposit. 

Sportsbook.com Line & Total: North Carolina -13 & 157.5

Opening Line & Total: Tar Heels –13 & 158.5

The North Carolina State Wolfpack are quietly putting together a respectable season (9-1 SU in past 10 games) and will travel just a few miles down the road to the Dean Dome to take on the No. 7 North Carolina Tar Heels in search of a résumé-building win.  

Carolina has won 10 straight meetings (7-3 ATS), but NC State is 7-6 ATS at the Dean Dome since 1998. The Wolfpack have been a great road bet at 3-0 ATS (2-1 SU) this season. This includes two ACC games in which they defeated Wake Forest by 36 points and a favored Miami team by five. In fact, they were also an underdog when they came out with an ATS win at Stanford earlier the season, losing SU. If one thing has become clear from North Carolina’s losses this season is that the Heels are vulnerable when an opposing team is willing to bang with them under the hoop. They are the country’s best rebounders (46.3 RPG) and scorers (85.1 PPG) but against physical interiors such as Florida State’s (who they lost to by 33 points earlier this month) both of those numbers floundered. Although C.J. Leslie (6.2 RPG) and Richard Howell (9.4 RPG) are undersized at 6-foot-8, both are physical and will join 6-foot-9 center DeShawn Painter (5.3 RPG) in giving Carolina big men John Henson (10.1 RPG) and Tyler Zeller (9.3 RPG) fits in the paint.

NC State’s offense is nothing to sneeze at this season, with 77.0 PPG (33rd in nation) and five players making it into double-figures on a nightly basis. Six-foot-6 combo player Scott Wood (13.3 PPG) paves the way as a deft shooter, making 2.8 threes per game on a 45% clip. Leslie (12.8 PPG) is a force in the post, as is Howell (11.9 PPG), each shooting above 50% from the floor. At 6-foot-5, Lorenzo Brown (12.4 PPG, 6.9 APG, 4.3 RPG) is lengthy for a point guard, something that could cause trouble for UNC’s point man Kendall Marshall and the Tar Heels backcourt. In fact, between Brown, Wood and 6-foot-5 guard C.J. Williams, the Wolfpack can put very big players on the perimeter to outsize their opponents. With the points, take NC State in this one.

The Tar Heels are paced by three of America’s best scorers, but probably go six-deep in terms of players who could be top scoring options on most other teams in the country. Harrison Barnes (17.4 PPG) leads the way with the ability to score from inside and outside while Henson and Zeller combine for 28.9 PPG on 54% shooting from the field. Henson (3.2 BPG) will have to be at his best defending on the interior because Leslie has the ability to dominate with his moves in the paint. Beyond those three, Reggie Bullock (8.4 PPG), P.J. Hairston (7.5 PPG) and Kendall Marshall (5.9 PPG) all have the ability to create for themselves. Marshall, though, does not need to score and is second in the country with 9.5 APG. He also has a 3.3 Ast/TO ratio. Marshall’s passing opens up the Tar Heels offense, but his success will have a lot to do with his ability to handle the tall NC State guards. Play against North Carolina as heavy favorites.

  • Carrie Stroup, Gambling911.com Senior Reporter

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