Games to Bet in the ACC This Weekend
The more things change, the more they stay the same in the world of ACC men’s basketball with North Carolina sitting alone atop the ACC standings while Duke is one of four teams a game out of first place. With Louisville and Notre Dame the only ACC teams with losing records, five of the seven games this weekend feature teams with winning records. Keep that in mind when it comes to making NCAAB picks.
Virginia and Wake Forest are both 9-0 at home and three other teams from the ACC are still undefeated at home.
The road team won two of the four games played on Wednesday. Louisville won at Miami as a 16½-point underdog according to our sportsbook while North Carolina, a three-point favorite, won by 13 points against rival North Carolina State.
The biggest ACC matchup on Saturday could be the one between Syracuse and North Carolina. The college basketball betting lines have listed the Tar Heels as the favorite in each of the last four meetings against Syracuse.
North Carolina moved up one spot to No. 7 in The Associated Press poll and went from ninth to seventh in the USA Today Coaches poll. Duke is the only other ACC ranked in the top 15 in both polls as the Blue Devils are 11th in the coaches poll and tied for 11th in the AP rankings. Clemson fell out of the top 20 in both polls.
When looking at the college basketball futures odds, Duke (+2200) is ninth, North Carolina (+2800) is 11th as they have the best odds of winning the national championship among ACC teams.
Syracuse Orange (11-4 SU, 7-8 ATS) at North Carolina Tar Heels (12-3 SU, 9-6 ATS)
- Date/Time: Saturday, January 13, Noon ET
- TV & Live Stream: ESPN
North Carolina has won 12 of the last 14 games against Syracuse. Syracuse has covered in five of the last 10 meetings and won outright in North Carolina as recently as 2019. A decade has passed since back-to-back games between Syracuse and North Carolina both finished under the total.
Syracuse is 1-2 on the road while North Carolina is 6-0 at home. The Orange have lost all three of the games against ranked teams.
Stanford transfer Harrison Ingram and Notre Dame transfer Cormac Ryan team with freshman Elliott Cadeau to offer some offensive support for returning starters RJ Davis (96 career starts) and Armando Bacot (146 career starts) for North Carolina.
Sophomore Chris Bell had 20 points and classmate Maliq Brown added 19 points and eight rebounds as Syracuse bounced back from a 20-point loss to Duke by topping Boston College the last time out. Last year’s top-scoring freshman Judah Mintz came off the bench for the first time in 47 career games at Syracuse.
North Carolina is 9-6 against the college basketball spread and that is tied with Duke for the best mark in the ACC. The Tar Heels are 3-3 against the spread at home. Syracuse has covered in just one of its three true road games.
Virginia Cavaliers (11-4 SU, 8-7 ATS) at Wake Forest Demon Deacons (11-4 SU, 8-6-1 ATS)
- Date/Time: Saturday, January 6, 2 p.m.ET
- TV & Live Stream: ESPN2
Virginia snapped a three-game losing streak to Wake Forest with a 76-67 road win in the last meeting. The Cavaliers were favored by three points in that matchup. It was the 15th game in a row when the Cavaliers were listed as the favorite by the college basketball lines when playing Wake Forest.
The Cavaliers have won five road games in a row in the series. The last time the Demon Deacons won at home against Virginia was in 2013.
Seven of the last 11 games between the Cavaliers and Demon Deacons landed over the total.
Virginia is coming off a 16-point loss to North Carolina State despite 18 points from second-leading scorer Isaac McNeely.
Wake Forest was unable to build on its upset of Miami as the Demon Deacons lost 87-82 to Florida State on Tuesday. The 20 turnovers were too much to overcome.
Virginia has failed to cover in all three of its road games. Wake Forest is 6-2-1 ATS at home.
Miami Hurricanes (11-4 SU, 8-6-1 ATS) at Virginia Tech Hokies (10-5 SU, 7-8 ATS)
- Date/Time: Saturday, January 6, 7 p.m.ET
- TV & Live Stream: ACC Network
Miami is looking to snap a two-game losing streak with the nine-point,home loss to a Louisville team with a losing record particularly troubling for a team coming off a run to the Final Four.
Mike James has been incredible for Louisville, while being extremely efficient:
-Nine straight games of scoring 10+
-44/41/82 shooting splits
-Career-high 26 pts in win @ Miami🔥pic.twitter.com/tQvTT1PfCa— Dalton Pence (@dpence_) January 11, 2024
There was a silver lining as second-leading scorer Wooga Poplar, who is averaging 16.3 points per game, returned to the court for the first time since late December.
Virginia Tech had no issues dispatching a ranked Clemson team in its most recent game. Junior Sean Pedulla had a season-high 32 points. Pedulla has 58 points in the last two games after managing just 24 in the previous four contests.
Miami swept the 2022-23 season series from Virginia Tech. The most recent matchup was a 76-70 road win by the Hurricanes listed as a three-point underdog.
That was the first time in the last seven meetings that a Miami-Virginia Tech matchup went under the total.
Miami is tied for the third-best mark against the spread among ACC teams. Nine of the Hurricanes’ games have landed over the total.
Questions of the Day
Which team is favored by our sportsbook to win the ACC title?
Duke came into the season with +130 odds of winning the ACC title with Miami and North Carolina both at +450.
Which team from the ACC is flying under the radar this season?
Florida State was priced at +6000 in the odds of winning the ACC title before the season started. The Seminoles head into the weekend a game out of first place in the ACC standings.
