Tar Heels Will Coast To Win Against Seminoles

North Carolina vs. Florida State, 7:00 ET

Saturday was a big college basketball day as it usually is this time of year. There was drama, tight games, blowouts, and some interesting results. I ended up losing my second player prop of the year, and it is likely to be my last. Cooper Flagg only scored 16 points in the game that I bet on between Duke and Illinois. Why did he have only 16 points? Because Illinois lost by about a million points. Brutal look for the Fighting Illini and cost me a unit. I'm hoping to try and get it back in tonight's game between a Duke rival, North Carolina and Florida State. 

North Carolina is having a fairly rough go of it for this season. They aren't terrible by any means, but they are struggling to have much continuous success. For the season, the Tar Heels are just 17-11 overall. They are also just 10-6 in ACC games this season. Over the last five games, the team is 4-1 with their only loss coming against Clemson on the road. If you zoom out a bit, the Tar Heels are 5-5 over the past ten games with wins over Boston College, Pittsburgh, and now Syracuse, North Carolina State, and Virginia. Their losses were against Stanford, Wake Forest, Pittsburgh, Duke, and Clemson. The losses to Duke and Clemson were both pretty ugly with the team losing by at least 17 points in both of them. North Carolina's scoring revolves around RJ Davis, but the team has had three different leading scorers in the past three games. Davis and Ian Jackson have been the primary leading scorers overall and I expect that the two of them will be quite the handful for Florida State to deal with tonight. 

WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 14: Primo Spears #23 of the Florida State Seminoles handles the ball against the North Carolina Tar Heels in the Quarterfinals of the ACC Men's Basketball Tournament  at Capital One Arena on March 14, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Photo by G Fiume/Getty Images)

There isn't much about Florida State that gives them an edge over North Carolina in tonight's game. Being at home is always one of the things that provides an edge, but that's were it ends. For the season, the Seminoles are 16-11, and they are just 7-9 in conference games. Florida State is 3-2 over the past five games with wins over Notre Dame, Wake Forest, and Miami. Outside of that, they have six losses, dropping games to Louisville, Clemson, Boston College, Virginia Tech, Stanford, and California. While most of the games weren't blowouts, they also weren't all nailbiters. Similarly to the Tar Heels, the Seminoles have two primary scorers. They have Jamir Watkins, a guard that is averaging 18.1 points per game. He is one of just two Florida State players contributing over 10 points per game this season. The other is forward Malique Ewin. The team does have a pretty deep roster, but their top five scorers all average seven points per game or more. The team also only has one player shooting over 35% from deep. 

If you look at this game purely based on talent, there is a clear edge to the Tar Heels. North Carolina isn't having a great campaign overall, but this is a game that they should take. Florida State is a decent team, but they aren't consistent, and tend to struggle against any team that isn't exactly matched with them in terms of talent. I'm going to take North Carolina to win this one and cover the -2.5 spread. 

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