A midafternoon matchup between the Marquette Golden Eagles of the Big East and North Carolina Tar Heels of the ACC is part of Thursday’s NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament betting card.
Marquette Golden Eagles vs. North Carolina Tar Heels
Thursday, March 17, 2022 – 04:30 PM EDT at Dickies Arena
Shaka Smart and Hubert Davis are certainly no strangers to the NCAA Tournament, but both will have a few butterflies since it’s their first seasons as head coaches at Marquette and North Carolina, respectively. Davis should be especially anxious since he took over from Tar Heels legend Roy Williams and is in his first season as a head coach at any school.
It's always easy to call contests between 8/9 seeds a toss-up, and this clash is no different. Neither team gave us much to go on for betting trends at the top-rated sportsbooks, the Golden Eagles running 16-15 ATS and a flat 15-15 in totals. North Carolina was a level 16-16-1 covering spreads and finished off the regular season with three ‘over’ winners to stand 19-13-1 O/U/P.
Eagles One-and-Done Last Two Dances
We get the TBS crew for this first-round action in the East Region, and it won’t require folks in the Eastern or Central time zones to duck out of work too early to watch it. The Tar Heels opened as 3-point favorites on the college basketball odds, and it won’t take much movement at some shops to bump that to 3½, and our scoreboard target is 152-152½.
All things considered, Marquette overachieved in its first season under Smart. Finishing sixth might not sound like much of an accomplishment, but the Golden Eagles were picked further back in the Big East pack according to the preseason NCAA basketball futures. They stumbled down the stretch going 3-4, then made a quick exit from the conference tourney where the Golden Eagles were upset by Creighton in the quarterfinals.
Marquette’s last trip to the NCAA Tournament in 2019 also ended quickly. Seeded No. 5 in the West Region, the Golden Eagles were embarrassed in an 83-64 loss to No. 12 seed Murray State. The Golden Eagles have dropped their last three NCAA Tournament games and covered just one of the last seven.
UNC 1-4 SU and ATS on Neutral Courts This Season
It wasn’t necessarily a smooth ride, but Davis’ first season running the show in Chapel Hill was still a success. The Tar Heels tied Notre Dame for the second-best regular-season record and seemed destined to face Duke in the finals of the ACC Tournament before an upset loss to Virginia Tech in the semis.
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North Carolina covered its last three regular-season tilts, including the finale against Duke with a 94-81 upset as an 11-point underdog at BetOnline. The Tar Heels enter the tournament as a top 25 team in scoring (77.5 ppg) and 13th in the country pulling down nearly 40 boards a contest.
Like Marquette’s last trip to the dance, North Carolina was also embarrassed in its lone tourney tilt a year ago. It was an 8/9 matchup like this one, and the Tar Heels were blasted 85-62 by Wisconsin that closed with UNC favored by 2. In their last half-dozen NCAA Tournament games, the Tar Heels cashed just one time.
Third March Madness Meeting for Heels and Eagles
Though there isn’t a lot of history between the two programs, with Thursday’s tussle just the seventh for North Carolina and Marquette, there is some recent history as well as two meetings in the NCAA Tournament.
Those two tourney clashes took place in 1977 when Marquette used a big first half to beat the Tar Heels for the National Championship, and in 2011 when North Carolina posted an 81-63 decision in the Sweet 16 over the 11th-seeded Golden Eagles.
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North Carolina also hosted Marquette in February 2021 when both schools were looking for action while their programs were seeing games canceled because of virus issues with their opponents.
The Tar Heels and Golden Eagles arranged the game in a matter of days, and Marquette pulled off the 83-70 upset in Chapel Hill as a 9½-point underdog.
If there is one thing that really stands out for me is how Marquette struggled the last six weeks or so when playing outside of Milwaukee. North Carolina, on the other hand, went 6-1 in its last road or neutral-site affairs. My college basketball pick will be on the ACC entry.
NCAAB Pick: North Carolina -3 (-108) with Heritage Sports (visit our Heritage Sports Review)
*The line and/or odds on picks in this article might have moved since the content was commissioned. For updated line movements, visit BMR’s free betting odds product.
