Take 2: Tobacco Road Rivalry Resumes
Duke’s Jabari Parker may be playing his last game at Cameron Indoor Stadium on Saturday.
No. 14 North Carolina and No. 4 Duke will bring their regular seasons to a close Saturday with the latest installment of the Tobacco Road rivalry.
The Blue Devils will host the Tar Heels at Cameron Indoor Stadium in Durham, N.C., with tip-off scheduled for 9:00 p.m. ET.
It may not be the championship decider many expected it to be at the beginning of the season, but this one still has enough spice to make it unmissable.
North Carolina (23-7, 13-4 ACC) travels to Durham having won 12 straight games, turning its season a full 180 degrees in the process.
The Tar Heels haven’t lost a game since January 20, when then-unranked Virginia – crowned ACC champion earlier this week – emerged with a 76-61 victory in Charlottesville, Va., sending North Carolina to a 1-3 record in the ACC.
This streak of 12 wins also happens to include a home win over the Blue Devils.
Duke (23-7, 12-5 ACC) meanwhile enters the game after suffering a shock defeat at the hands of Wake Forest on Wednesday. The Blue Devils will be looking to salvage what has been a somewhat disappointing year, at least away from Cameron Indoor Stadium that is.
Mike Krzyzewski’s side is a perfect 16-0 in front of the Cameron Crazies, and is looking to go undefeated at home for the second straight season. With a 32-game home winning streak on the line, the Blue Devils will seek a measure of revenge against a Tar Heels side that came out on top of a February 20 matchup in Chapel Hill.
Jabari Parker registered a double-double (17 points, 11 rebounds) in that game to go alongside 17 points from Quinn Cook off the bench and 16 from Rodney Hood. But it wasn’t enough to earn a victory.
Leslie McDonald has 21 points for the Tar Heels to go alongside 13 from Marcus Paige, while James Michael McAdoo added 10 points and 10 boards. The Tar Heels outrebounded the Blue Devils to the tune of 43-30, and went to the line 19 more times. After trailing by seven at the half, the Tar Heels won the second half 44-29 to emerge with a 74-66 victory.
Now Roy Williams’ will look to repeat the feat on the road.
Marcus Paige and North Carolina will look to sweep the season series against rivals Duke.
In a plot twist that the scriptwriters couldn’t have written better, it was North Carolina that last defeated Duke on its home court. An 88-70 win on March 3, 2012, gave the Tar Heels the ACC championship that year. The championship may have gone to the Cavaliers this year, but the team from Chapel Hill will cherish any win over its archrival.
North Carolina earned a 63-61 victory over Notre Dame this past Monday to bring its overall record even with Duke. A game to the good in the conference standings, the Tar Heels could still earn as high as the No. 2 seed in the ACC tournament next week, depending on how No. 7 Syracuse fares in its matchup with Florida State (Sunday, 2:00 p.m. ET).
Were North Carolina and Syracuse both to lose, Duke would join the two at 13-5, leaving the tiebreaking procedure to separate the three.
North Carolina Tar Heels vs. Duke Blue Devils odds for 03/08/2014
The Blue Devils will enter the game preferred over the Tar Heels, thanks to that home winning streak.
While Duke’s streak is impressive, the fact that the two sides are so close means that this could be as good as any time to bet against the Blue Devils winning.
Just how close are the two sides? Since the 1979-80 campaign, North Carolina leads the head-to-head series 42-41. That’s right, by one game. It gets better. Over that same period, Duke has scored 6,454 points while North Carolina has scored 6,453. That’s right, there’s a one-point difference. So, despite that home record, this might be a pick’em.
But then again…
Duke is 12-6 in its last 18 home games against North Carolina and 7-3 in the last 10 played on either court. Maybe the Blue Devils aren’t quite ready to let that winning streak slide away.
The spread opened at… 8, but has already dropped as low as with some sportsbooks.
On the season, Duke (17-12-1 ATS) has fared better against the spread than North Carolina (16-14-0 ATS), but that doesn’t take into account more recent trends.
The Blue Devils are 0-3-1 ATS in their last four games. Prior to this stretch, Coach K’s side had gone 7-1-0 ATS. The Tar Heels meanwhile have failed to cover in three straight, prior to which they had gone 9-0-0 ATS.
The edge may come down to the head-to-head matchup. North Carolina covered the spread in the earlier meeting this season, bringing its recent record against Duke to 3-1-0 ATS and 7-1-0 ATS when playing at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
At the time of publication, the total had yet to be released. As ever, BettingSports.com has the skinny on what to look for when it is unveiled.
Both North Carolina (14-16-0) and Duke (13-16-1) have favored the under this season, and he under continues to look the smart bet.
The total has gone under in nine of the last 11 head-to-head meetings between the sides, including that February 20 matchup, as well as four of the last six they’ve played in Durham.
Following this weekend’s slate of games, the ACC tournament will take place at Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, N.C., from March 12-16.
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