Portland vs North Carolina 11/24/22 College Basketball Picks, Predictions, Odds

The North Carolina Tar Heels and the Portland Pilots meet in college basketball action from the Moda Center on Thursday.

The North Carolina Tar Heels will look to build on their 80-64 win over James Madison from their last game. Armando Bacot leads the Tar Heels in scoring and rebounding, averaging a double-double per game with 18.2 PPG and 11.8 RPG while Caleb Love is averaging 17.8 PPG along with 5.5 RPG and a team-high 3.3 APG to lead the Tar Heels in the assist department up to this point in the season. R.J. Davis has 15.8 PPG with 4.8 RPG and 3 APG while Pete Nance has 10.5 PPG to cap off the group of double-digit scorers for North Carolina up to this point in the season. Leaky Black also has 8.5 PPG and 7 RPG for the Tar Heels this season. As a team, North Carolina is averaging 80.8 PPG on 47.1% shooting from the field, 28.8% from behind the arc and 76.1% from the foul line this season.

The Portland Pilots will try to bounce back from an 80-68 loss to Seattle in their last game. Tyler Robertson has 17.5 PPG along with 5.2 RPG and a team-high 4.3 APG to lead the Pilots in the assist department as well up to this point in the season. Moses Wood has 13.8 PPG along with a team-high 7.6 RPG to lead the Pilots on the glass while Kristian Sjolund has 12.2 PPG with 4.2 RPG and Mike Meadows has 11.3 PPG with 4.5 RPG to cap off the scoring in double figures for Portland so far this season. As a team, Portland is averaging 79.2 PPG on 45.3% shooting from the field, 36.7% from behind the arc and 75.8% from the foul line this season.

North Carolina is 6-0 ATS in their last 6 neutral site games and 7-1 ATS in their last 8 games against a team with a winning percentage above .600 while the under is 4-1 in their last 5 games overall. Portland is 10-1 ATS in their last 11 games following a loss and 0-5 ATS in their last 5 games against a team with a winning percentage above .600 while the over is 5-1 in their last 6 games following a double-digit loss at home.

I get the case to be made for either side here, as this is a pseudo-home game for Portland but the Tar Heels are still the better team by a fair margin though they haven’t been able to cover the number for much of anything this season. That being said, I’m going to the over here as the offense hasn’t been much of an issue for UNC and I think they’re capable of hanging 85-90 on Portland here, but the Pilots are also capable of scoring into the 65-70 point range here and pushing us over the number so give me the over here.