Posted at 10:30 AM EST. Odds subject to change.

Pinnacle +14½ -109 BET365 +15 -110 Sportsinteraction +15 -115 888Sport +15 -110

Dean E. Smith Center, Chapel Hill, NC

Notre Dame +14½ -109 over North Carolina

Streaming: ACC Network

7:00 PM EST. The Fighting Irish of Notre Dame are just 12-17, and 7-11 in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), and while they are not the target here, we’ll note that this is not a “bad” team; it is a young team in its first season under head coach Micah Shrewsberry, who spent two years as the head coach of Penn State, four years as an assistant (in two different stints) at Purdue, and six years in the NBA as an assistant with the Celtics among other stops along the way before landing in South Bend.

It is easy to forget just how stale the Irish had become under Mike Brey, vanilla, if you will, with just one NCAA Tournament trip since 2017 after a nice run of nine tourneys from 2006-17. The Irish needed someone new and fresh, and Shrewsberry fit the bill. The Irish are setting a solid foundation for next season, having won five of their last six, with victories over Virginia Tech (52), Georgia Tech (130), at Louisville (195), Wake Forest (21), and Clemson (25).

The Tar Heels of North Carolina (UNC) are college hoops royalty, and they head into their second-to-last game of the regular season as the #7 team in the country, with an opportunity to take at least a share of the ACC crown with a win over a young Notre Dame side in which UNC is favored by a significant margin.

The Tar Heels have ripped off four wins in a row (Virginia Tech, Virginia, Miami, and N.C. State) to regain their footing in the ACC after a run in which they lost three of five to Syracuse, Clemson, and Georgia Tech. There is no shame in losing in a meat grinder of a conference like the ACC, but the Tar Heels are being treated like an elite team that could easily be a #2 seed in the NCAA Tournament and perhaps higher depending on their finish to the season and their performance in the ACC Tournament.

That finish to the season is where we want to focus here, as North Carolina plays its biggest rival, #9 Duke, on Saturday in Cameron. Entering tonight, UNC leads Duke by a half-game in the ACC, with the Blue Devils waiting for the Tar Heels after knocking off N.C. State last night. While we were taking a closer look at UNC’s struggles earlier this month, we couldn’t help but notice that they lost the Georgia Tech game before playing Duke, then beat the Blue Devils, but then lost the game after Duke to Clemson.

That is not to say the Irish are going to win this game outright tonight, but the significant piles of points they are being offered look even more appealing considering the Tar Heels could be caught looking ahead to Duke in a game that is going to impact their NCAA Tournament seeding. UNC is not likely to give anything away here, nor are they likely going to go all out in what is a glorified practice with the biggest game of the season on the horizon.  

Sherwood

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