The new look ACC should provide more than a few intriguing match-ups for the future. Syracuse and UNC just so happen to be two of America’s strongest programs historically, and they will look to initiate what could be a great rivalry starting on Saturday afternoon.
The Orangemen sit at 15-0 and have beaten a slew of top 75 teams to start the year. They have yet to play a truly difficult road game, and so it’s tough to really figure out how good they are and can be until that happens.
As of now, however, they are a team that has struggled with this sort of matchup as was evidenced by their tough home win last Saturday against Miami. Jim Larranaga’s squad has tremendous size and defensive versatility, traits which frustrated Syracuse last week and did the same to these Tar Heels just this past Wednesday.
Carolina has a dominant front line which will be quite helpful here. They are a top 20 team in terms of defensive efficiency and should be able to create some problems on the offensive boards for the Orange.
But the Heels have been abysmal when it comes to free throw shooting and consistency from behind the arc. They rank 265 nationally in three point field goal percentage, and have generally struggled to produce offensively throughout this young season.
Their two most recent losses, to Wake Forest and the aforementioned Hurricanes of Miami, showed what teams with size could do against them. They will also have to deal with the fact that most teams going up against the Syracuse zone for the first time tend to struggle with it.
The current spread of 7.5 is pretty much in line with my expectations regarding this game. Syracuse is a very difficult team to beat at home and you have to figure this zone will cause headaches for the Tar Heels at least initially.
This game could be more up and down than UNC’s recent losses, and that likely benefits them because they will get better scoring opportunities in transition. Still, Syracuse has the better point guard situation and they will control tempo when they need to.They should win this game by something shy of double digits.
