College Basketball Betting – Syracuse at (15) North Carolina

Syracuse Orange at (15) North Carolina Tar Heels (-11.5)

The Syracuse Orange (14-6, 5-2 ACC) and No. 15 North Carolina Tar Heels (16-4, 6-1 ACC) will face off this evening (7:00 p.m. Eastern at the Dean E. Smith Center in Chapel Hill) looking to stay within striking distance of undefeated Virginia in the ACC.

The Tar Heels come into tonight on a five-game win streak; UNC has downed Louisville along with ACC rivals NC State, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest, and Florida State in its last five. The team’s only conference loss came in early January to Notre Dame.

Junior forward Brice Johnson (12.0 PPG, 7.7 RPG) – who has been laboring with injuries this year – had one of his best games of the season against Florida State, scoring 18 points and adding 14 rebounds as the Heels squeaked by the Noles, 78-74, in Chapel Hill.

“It’s a work in progress,” North Carolina coach Roy Williams said of Johnson. “Brice is getting better. His toughness today was maybe one of the best games he’s had because he’s hurting. … But he’s nowhere close to what I think he can be.”

North Carolina has been an offensive powerhouse most of the season, averaging 79.4 points per game (17th in the nation). Johnson and 6’9′ sophomore Kennedy Meeks (8.8 RPG) have turned the Heels into beasts on the glass; the team averages 43.9 rebounds per game, second in the country.

Tonight, UNC will be facing a Syracuse team that is a struggling to find consistency. The Orange are a respectable 14-6 on the season, and are a game over .500 in the ACC (3-2). However, they have yet to beat a top-25 team this year and have alternated wins and losses in their last four.

Most recently, Syracuse lost 66-62 to the Miami Hurricanes at home. The team’s performance from the charity strip sealed its fate. “We did everything we could to win the game. You’re playing a good team; you can’t miss 11 free throws. That’s really the ballgame. We overcame two ten-point deficits each half. You go to the free throw line in those situations; you have to make those free throws,” Orange coach Jim Boeheim said after the loss to Miami.

The Tar Heels are 11.5-point favorites for tonight’s game. North Carolina is 1-4 ATS in its last five at home. They have also dropped two games SU at the Dean E. Smith Center this year, one to Notre Dame (71-70) and one to Iowa (60-55). Look for the Orange to keep it to single digits tonight.

(Photo credit: barberbonanza [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons. Photo has been cropped.)