CBB FREE PICK: North Carolina Tar Heels vs. Virginia Tech Hokies

#606 UNDER 142 (Tuesday, March 10 @ 7 pm EST)

With Cole Anthony healthy, North Carolina has started to look a little like the Tar Heels of old as points and pace have been more plentiful. But racing up and down the floor and trading baskets with NC State, Wake Forest, and Duke is a lot easier to accomplish than it will be against an undersized Virginia Tech team that knows it’s only path to victory is to limit possessions and keep the score in the 60’s.

And the Hokies were able to do just that in the lone regular season meeting between the two squads. The score at the end of regulation was 60-60 and there were only 63 possessions. It should be noted however that Anthony did’t play in that game and he’s no doubt worth something to both the point spread and total. But he’s not THAT big of an impact player, particularly due to his inefficient offense ways.

Virginia Tech didn’t play a lot of ACC games that topped 140 points which was by design considering how young and small Mike Young’s squad is. In fact, only three of Tech’s 20 ACC games topped that mark and one was on the road against Duke who as we know, plays with pace and can score as well as any team in the country. We’ll look to play this one UNDER the total.