College Basketball Betting – (2) Virginia at Syracuse

(2) Virginia Cavaliers (-5.5, 114 o/u) at Syracuse Orange

Due to academic scandals, the Syracuse Orange (18-11, 9-7 ACC) won’t be going to March Madness this year. But Jim Boeheim’s squad remains a dangerous team with a lot of pride. Tonight, the Orange will host No. 2 Virginia (27-1, 15-1 ACC) at the Carrier Dome (7:00 PM Eastern), hoping to make the Cavaliers wait at least one more game to clinch the outright ACC regular season title.

Virginia got its first ever win against Syracuse last season, whipping the Orange 75-56 in Charlottesville and covering as four-point favorites.  The win gave Virginia its first outright ACC title in 13 years, and another W tonight would give them back-to-back ACC titles for the first time since 1983.

The Cavaliers have been absolute road warriors this season. They’re only loss on the year came at home against Duke on Jan. 31; the team is a perfect 10-0 in true road games. In the Cavs’ most recent road contest, they embarrassed Wake Forest on their home court, 70-34.

They followed that up with a 69-57 home win over Virginia Tech on Saturday. Senior forward Darion Atkins, who was playing his final home game at John Paul Jones Arena, had a season-high 16 points in the win.

“I’m glad I went out that way,” Atkins told the AP after the game.

Syracuse, on the other hand, is coming off its most lopsided loss of the season, a 73-54 thumping at the hands of No. 4 Duke. Four starters scored in double-figures for the Orange, but the team shot just over 30-percent from the field. The shooting play from the guards was particularly bad; Michael Gbinije and Trevor Cooney were a combined 10/36.

Coach Boeheim was particularly disappointed in Gbinije, who missed several shots from close range. “You can miss 3s … but you can’t miss layups,” said Boeheim to the Associated Press.

The inconsistent play was nothing new for the Orange, who have alternated wins and losses over their last nine games.

The Cavaliers are a solid 33-16-2 ATS in their last 51 games. The Orange are 4-11-1 ATS in their last 16, but 5-2-1 ATS in their last eight as an underdog .

(Photo credit: Thomson20192 (flickr) [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode]. Photo has been cropped.)