Virginia North Carolina Betting - Virginia Tries To Upset North Carolina This Weekend

The North Carolina Tar Heels’ biggest game this week will come against the Duke Blue Devils. The Virginia Cavaliers will try to take advantage of that very fact this upcoming Saturday.

Sports betting line: No line

Why Virginia Will Win

When you do your homework and assess your sports bet on this game, one has to point out that North Carolina will be coming off an emotionally draining game against Duke, its foremost archrival. Yes, this game is being played in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, but mental fatigue can and does emerge just as much at home as it does on the road. North Carolina is not a professional team; it is still a college team with kids who are not yet paid to ply their trade. The 19- and 20-year-olds on the Tar Heels’ roster will pour a lot of energy into beating Duke, and will probably not face Virginia with the same amount of vigor. Naturally, Carolina should still be favored, but Virginia will treat this game like a Super Bowl; North Carolina will treat this as an important ACC game but not the centerpiece of its regular season, because that’s what Duke represents. Virginia can play hounding and tenacious defense, too; coach Tony Bennett has molded the Cavaliers into an NCAA Tournament-worthy team by getting his players to buy into a philosophy based on hard work and lunch-pail grit.

Virginia won’t play the most attractive form of basketball, but it will grind and compete with anyone in the nation, making it hard for opponents to score each and every basket. Virginia looked down for the count this past Saturday at Florida State, trailing by 13 points late in the contest and looking utterly lost. The Cavaliers, however, responded with a 14-0 run which enabled them to take the lead over the Seminoles. Yes, Virginia lost that game by a 58-55 count, but that 14-0 run shows that this team can fight North Carolina on even terms. The Cavaliers simply won’t back down from this challenge.

Why North Carolina Will Win

The college basketball betting experts who follow the Atlantic Coast Conference for a living know that while Virginia is an extremely competent team that will likely make the NCAA Tournament, there is a certain degree of separation between the Cavaliers and the elites in the ACC. North Carolina is an elite team. The Tar Heels have a gifted young point guard in Kendall Marshall, a brilliant wing shooter-scorer in Harrison Barnes, and two long-limbed post players in Tyler Zeller and John Henson. Virginia cannot match up with the Heels’ athleticism. The Cavaliers have to make this game ugly in order to have a chance. Virginia dies at the offensive end of the floor; the Cavs scored just 45 points in a loss to Virginia Tech a few weeks ago, and just 55 in a loss at Florida State this past Saturday. If Virginia can’t score at least 68 points or thereabouts, it will have a very hard time winning.

Who Will Win

It’s this simple: Virginia will indeed score below 68 points, probably falling at 62 or so. North Carolina won’t flourish offensively, but it will do enough to pull out a tough win three days after taking on Duke.