NIT Odds: W & M Tribe vs NC State Tar Heels
by Charles Jay
Ask yourself a question - do you think that all those blue-chip recruits who signed letters of intent with North Carolina over the last couple of seasons thought they might actually miss the Big Dance, the year after rolling to a national title? I doubt it, seriously.
However, that's what happens when you lose so much real talent, as the Tar Heels did when Tyler Hansbrough, Danny Green, Ty Lawson and Wayne Ellington left for the NBA.
There are a lot of college coaches in this country who could have made so with the collection of high school All-Americans that were left over, but apparently Roy Williams, who fell into jobs at Kansas and now Chapel Hill, and never had to work with athletes that were not superior to most of the opposition, wasn't able to get it done.
William & Mary Tribe (22-10 SU, 16-10-2 ATS) at North Carolina Tar Heels (16-16 SU, 9-19-1 ATS)
NIT Opening Round
Tuesday, March 16 - 9:30 PM ET
College Basketball Lines: NORTH CAROLINA -8.5
Here are some of the NCAA basketball betting trends as they relate to this matchup:
- W&M has won seven of its last ten games SU
- W&M has played 13 of its last 15 games UNDER the total
- W&M has covered five of its last six road games
- W&M has won 11 of its last 16 road games SU
- W&M has played its last ten road games UNDER the total
- NC has covered three of its last 12 games
- NC has lost nine of its last 12 games SU
- NC has played eight of its last nine games UNDER the total
- NC has covered two of its last seven home games
- NC has won 19 of its last 25 home games SU
- NC has lost five of its last seven home games SU
- NC has played seven of its last eight home games UNDER the total
Sure, the Heels suffered some key injuries to front line people like Ed Davis, but there is no getting around the fact that without a preponderance of firepower, this team under-achieved.
With the 16-16 SU mark, and just 9-19-1 ATS in the college basketball lines, as well as the second-half collapse in the ACC tournament against Georgia Tech, which followed a 32-point loss to Duke, we come to the conclusion that Williams has done a horrible job and produced a horrible team.
Now the questions must be asked as to how much these players are looking forward to playing in a tournament that, while signifying a level of success for a school like William & Mary, means failure to them. A team like North Carolina is going to be vulnerable to an upset. Can William & Mary deliver one?
Indications are that they might be. William & Mary takes care of the ball (10.9 turnovers a game), which is in stark contrast to the sloppy, badly-coached Tar Heels (15.6). The Tribe can use its experience to exert some control over the pace, and will force North Carolina to come out and guard the perimeter 8.7 threes a game).
They are better prepared and better coached. Tony Shaver, who has done much more with much less, as opposed to Williams, who has done less with more, found a way to get his team, which was picked near the bottom of the Colonial Athletic Conference, into the CAA title game.
They won ROAD games at Wake Forest and Maryland, who are both in the NCAA's. They also beat Richmond, another Big Dance participant. In terms of any intimidation factor that might exist, it doesn't hurt that Shaver played his college ball at North Carolina, so he can tell his players all about it.
Moreover, they are a sizzling 13-3 against the college basketball spread as an underdog. Great underdogs (in a game that may be their biggest in recent memory) against under-achievers that are poorly coached often do well for us, and so we take the opportunity to grab points with William & Mary, getting 8.5 points in the college basketball lines.
JAY'S PLAY: WILLIAM & MARY +8.5 ****
(Graded on a scale of 1-4 stars)
