Wake Forest Will Have More Of An Edge Against UNC

North Carolina vs. Wake Forest, 9:00 ET

Last week I was overwhelmed by the amount of great matchups that I saw in College Hoops. This week, at least Monday and Tuesday, doesn't have the best matchups in terms of ranked teams facing each other, but there are still some good ones. This game doesn't feature a ranked team in the game, but it does have two very good teams that have a chance at making some noise in the tournament in just a few months. Let's see how we should bet the game between North Carolina and Wake Forest. 

North Carolina, a name synonymous with college basketball, is having a bit of a down year. They had a bunch of success a few years ago, then came into a season as the top ranked team in the nation. That season they didn't even make the NCAA tournament. Last season they made it to the Sweet 16 and barely lost to Alabama. This season has seen them struggle a bit as they deal with turnover to their roster. They already have seven losses for the year, but most of them were to reasonable teams. They lost to Kansas in Kansas by three points in the second game of the season. At that time, Kansas was the top team in the country. They then lost to Auburn, Michigan State, and Alabama on three consecutive days over the Thanksgiving tournament. That put them at 4-4 for the season after that tournament. After winning a couple of games, they then lost to Florida. It was a close enough game, and it was on a neutral court, but it was still a 90-84 loss. Their next loss came against Louisville on the road. In that one they fell by 13 points. Again, pretty much every one of these losses was understandable and they were reasonably competitive in most of them. The most recent loss came in their last game, when they lost 72-71 to Stanford in Chapel Hill. The team doesn't have much height and pretty much relies on their guard play for everything - their top five scorers are all guards. 

Dec 14, 2024; Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA; North Carolina Tar Heels bench reacts in the second half at Dean E. Smith Center. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-Imagn Images

Wake Forest is doing slightly better at 14-4, and they have a stronger conference record, at 6-1, but they aren't ranked either. Still, this has been an encouraging season, and one that will likely end in a trip to the Big Dance. As a brief aside, I can't believe we are only about a month and a half from the start of the tournament. This season is flying by. Wake Forest probably will be ranked at some point if they can make some progress over the next few games as well. They lost to Xavier on the road early in the season, then fell to Florida on a neutral court. Their next two losses came on the road as well with them dropping games to Texas A&M and Clemson. Both of those teams were ranked at the time and they were road games, so it was fairly understandable that they lost the games. My bigger concern about Wake Forest is that they haven't really beaten anyone special, which is probably why they aren't ranked. The rest of their season only has three ranked teams at the moment and one is Louisville who they already have lost to. 

I think the path for Wake Forest to win this game is fairly clear. They need to have their forwards control the boards and use their height. Shooting on the road tends to be an issue for teams, so I'm not overly confident that North Carolina will score at will against Wake Forest, but they have talented guys so it also shouldn't be assumed that it will be impossible for them to score. I'm going to back Wake Forest here as I think they have more possibilities to win this game at home than North Carolina does for stealing it on the road. The line is moving toward UNC though, if that matters to you. 

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