North Carolina vs. NC State Pick – Basketball Predictions & Odds 1/21/23

The NC State Wolfpack and the North Carolina Tar Heels meet in college basketball action from the Dean E. Smith Center on Saturday. Let’s dive into the odds, injuries, matchup history and make a prediction for this game.

Odds

The North Carolina Tar Heels are currently listed as a 5.5-point favorite with a -250 price tag on the ML attached. The total for this game is set at 152.5 points.

Injuries

For NC State, Jack Clark is once again questionable for this game with a hip injury while North Carolina has Jalen Washington listed as questionable with an ankle injury.

Matchup history

The Tar Heels have won the last three meetings with NC State after an 84-74 win in the last meeting back on February 26^th, 2022.

Trends

NC State is 4-9 ATS in their last 13 road games and 16-34-2 ATS in their last 52 games overall while the under is 6-1-1 in their last 8 games following a win. North Carolina is 2-5 ATS in their last 7 games overall and 1-4 ATS in their last 5 games against a team with a winning record while the over is 4-1 in their last 5 home games.

Pick

I’m backing the under here. It’s hard for me to select a side here because at this number, I could honestly make the case either way as the Tar Heels are the better team on paper and historically they should be able to cover this number but they haven’t been great at covering this season in all fairness. That being said, the scoring over the last five games for both teams and numbers over the course of conference play suggest that we likely have a game in the mid-140s and I think a total this high is only where it is because of the high-scoring history between these two teams. All in all, I like for this game to finish in the mid-140s so give me the under here.