Wisconsin at North Carolina: NCAA Basketball Picks

Wednesday's marquee game on the NCAA basketball betting schedule finds the North Carolina Tar Heels hosting the Wisconsin Badgers.  ESPN has the action from Chapel Hill starting at 9:30 PM (ET), with the Heels favored by eight points and 135 for the total. 

This contest would be interesting regardless of where the two teams sat in the rankings given the contrasting styles of the two coaches, Wisconsin's Bo Ryan and UNC's Roy Williams.  Adding to that plot is the Tar Heels coming off their first loss of the campaign, 90-80 to UNLV at the Las Vegas Invitational last Saturday.  The defeat jettisoned North Carolina (5-1 SU, 3-2 ATS) from a consensus No. 1 in both polls down to No. 5. 

Wisconsin (6-0 SU, 3-0 ATS) enters ranked ninth by the writers and seventh by the coaches. 

The general feeling heading into this match among both the non-betting public and hoops bettors of all shapes is this is a bad, bad spot for Ryan and his Badgers.  North Carolina is going to be upset about losing that contest and ready to rumble this week with games against Wisconsin and newly-named No. 1 Kentucky on the slate.  Williams and his lads have an excellent chance to really show why, even with one loss already, they still deserve to be considered the best team in the country. 

Besides, how wrong could nearly 96% of the voters in both polls combined be after placing the Tar Heels tops on their ballots just a week ago? 

Those voters are rarely wrong about who should be No. 1, but they can be very wrong about the teams behind that slot.  Make no mistake about this UNC squad.  It would be a huge shock not to see the Tar Heels seeded at the top of one region come next March, and no one should be surprised to see them win it all.  What the voters got wrong to start with was underrating UNLV under 1st-year head coach Dave Rice.  That was a signature win for the Runnin' Rebels who failed to get much preseason pub, much like the Virginia Tech Hokies. 

North Carolina had a very poor night shooting the ball in defeat last Saturday night...no, make that about 10 minutes of clock time that the Heels couldn't buy a bucket.  The rest of the night wasn't too bad.  The defense they were facing did play a role, but most of the blame was on UNC.  Williams is also going to be stressing the defensive glass in practices leading up to this game; the Rebels got a lot of put-back's in their upset. 

Wisconsin is off to a fast start considering the Badgers lost a ton of talent in Jon Leuer.  It's still an in-your-face Ryan defense, and the outside shooting has been incredible on the offensive end.  Wisky is third in the nation hitting over 47% from 3-point land, and averaging more than 11 treys per game. 

The Badgers will be hard-pressed to keep up that accuracy against North Carolina.  Wisconsin is also averaging just less than 10 free throw attempts per game, making just six of them.  More scoring has to come from the charity stripe eventually. 

There isn't much series history to go on for NCAA basketball odds trends.  This is just the second hardwood meeting between the schools, the other in the regional semis of the 2005 NCAA Tournament, an 88-82 win for the Heels.  North Carolina followed that victory up with victories over two more Big Ten teams, Michigan State and Illinois, to win the national title. 

Both schools are 6-6 in the interconference challenge, and North Carolina has only won two of the three ACC-Big Ten games played at the Dean Smith Center. 

Taking a Chance: This game, and the outcome for bettors, will be decided in the first 10-12 minutes. To cover the spread or even score the outright upset, Wisconsin has to hit shots from 18 feet and beyond early on, plus limit UNC's second-chance points.  The Tar Heels have to come out scoring and start off winning the battle of the boards. 

The question on the total is whether or not Wisconsin can slow the game down enough to keep the final score UNDER.  I don't think so, my pick is North Carolina by a 78-66 count.