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Blue Bloods Part 2!
North Carolina vs Duke -4.5 O/U 151
What a perfect game and perfect finish for Coach K’s career to face Duke’s rival in North Carolina in the Final 4. It’s shocking to me that these two teams have never met in the NCAA tournament with their significant history, and such a great rivalry in college sports. Let’s take a look at some of that history.
Back on Feb. 5 2022, when Duke visited the Dean Smith Center for the last time under Krzyzewski, the Blue Devils beat the Tar Heels 87-67 to claim the coach’s 50th win in the rivalry. All-time, Krzyzewski sits with a 50-46 record, and he will try to extend it out to 51-46 if Duke can win on Saturday. The only season in which Krzyzewski did not coach in the rivalry came in the 1994-95 campaign, when he was recovering from back surgery.
Only one coach has more wins in the rivalry than Krzyzewski and that is the legend of Dean Smith. In Smith’s career at UNC, he went 59-35 against the Blue Devils, including a 24-14 mark against Krzyzewski when their careers overlapped. The UNC coach’s teams out-scored Krzyzewski’s 3,060-2,921 in those matchups. Since Smith retired following the 1996-97 season, Coach K has owned the rivalry. He has gone 36-22 in the time since, including 23-19 against coach Roy Williams, who retired at the end of the 2020-21 campaign. Krzyzewski’s Duke teams have outscored the Tar Heels 7,517-7,468. Since Smith retired, Duke has outscored UNC 4,596-4,408.
Let’s get to the game shall we? I must say that a soon as number eight North Carolina beat Baylor in the group of 32, the thought crossed my mind that UNC could meet up with Duke in the Final 4, and this was before the Zags were eliminated. If we wanted to add a little more spice to this rivalry, UNC is the only team to not honor coach K in his last year at their home game vs Duke earlier this season. There are two ways of looking at this game, we can use the full season of statistics where Duke has remained a top six caliber team the whole way through while UNC was in doubt to even make the tournament just six weeks ago, or we could look at what these teams since UNC’s ugly loss to Pittsburgh. I think the later is more appropriate the way that UNC has rebounded from that loss and went on a crazy run including beating Duke at coach K’s final game at Cameron Indoor Arena. Looking at shear momentum, we have to give it to UNC who ranks 12th in the nation. From the perspective of a pure season power rating, Duke has the edge by about 4 points on a neutral court over North Carolina, but if we look at Jeff Sagarin’s recent column in his power ratings here https://sagarin.usatoday.com/2022-2/college-basketball-team-ratings-2021-22/, he has the Tar Heels favored by 1 point.
I do not think that either team will have a near proximity or mid range advantage over each other from a matchup standpoint, but I do think that both teams are shooting lights out from three point land. Both squads ranking in the top 28 in adjusted three point percentage while neither team defends the long ball all that well. Looking at the coaching, you have to give the advantage to coach K. He has all of the experience in this situation over first year coach Hubert Davis, and the charisma to work the officiating in the dire moments in the biggest of all games. I will say that Hubie has certainly proven his worth as a coach over the last six weeks of this season, but it has never been done to see a rookie head coach make it to the final game of the tournament and Kevin Ollie was the closest one to ever do it in his second year at UCONN back in 2014.
Another thing that we must acknowledge is that there might be a lack of defense in this game being that these two teams both rank number 1 and number 2 in opponent free throws attempted per game. I think that this crazy coincidence might be a mixture of the fact that these teams do not like to foul early thus allowing their opponents easier shots juxtaposed with the perception that these teams sometimes get the benefit of the doubt from the zebras. I suppose it is a good thing that they are playing each other, but I also think that this type of offensive oriented play is contusive to a faster paced game and giving up lots of points. See what I am getting at here? North Carolina plays a very fast pace game ranking 36th in pace in the nation and Duke has been known this year to speed it up when they have to. During their last matchup, the teams reached 75 possessions and with a total score of 175. I think that this game has a very good chance to pace over 72 possessions and this is why we see a total of over 150.
Looking at the Matchups, the speed of this game, and the potential lack of defense, I have to lean to the over even in a bad shooting venue such as the Mercedes Benz Superdome in New Orleans, and that venue might be the only thing keeping me off of it. What I will say is that I make this only a three point game and think that there is some value on the Tarheels here. UNC beat Duke in their most important regular season game this year on senior night in Cameron Indoor Stadium, and players like Love and Bacot have really stepped it up. Duke on the other hand has also been playing out of their minds but they do lack experience at an average age of 19 years old. I have Duke winning this game 79-76, but don’t be shocked if UNC wins this, and I will put a play in on UNC +4.5 with a strong lean to the over.
UNC +4.5 – 2.5 stars and sprinkle
Maybe grab the over 151 and buy back for half when the number creeps up past 153
