North Carolina 'Dogs At Home Against Duke

Sports News - February 10th, 2010 - Written By John Ritter

It's hard to remember a time when a game had such dire implications for North Carolina. Sure, the Tar Heels always like to beat Duke, but losing this time could truly spell disaster in a season that has been defunct from the start.

North Carolina is at home against it's fiercest rival on a night it will retire Tyler Hansborough's jersey. But the College Basketball Betting Lines have the Tar Heels listed as 6 point underdogs, according to Bodog, because of a miserable start to the season. At 13-10, the reigning National Champions are only hoping to make the tournament at all.

Duke is only 2-6 ATS in the last eight meetings, and another paltry performance on Wednesday night would be a big step in turning around the North Carolina's season, and would give Roy Williams' team it's first big win of the year.

Williams told reporters he can't imagine things starting much worse than it has for his team, who has already lost to the College of Charleston and the ACC's eight-place Clemson.

"At times, I feel we are getting better and at other times, I see us regress," Williams said. "That has been difficult to handle."

North Carolina hasn't lost four-straight at home since 2002.

The Tar Heels are on their second three-game losing streak this year, capped by an embarrassing 92-71 loss to Maryland last Sunday. Terrapin point guard Greivis Vasquez hit six three-points and scored 26 points to lead the way, and North Carolina allowed Maryland to shot 51.5-percent from the floor. It also shot well over 50-percent from three-point range, which has been a problem for the Heels.

Even worse news is that's where the Blue Devils earn their scholarships, shooting a conference-best 39-percent from behind the arc.

Duke hasn't been dazzling recently, but is allowing opponents to score a full 10 points less per game than it's rival. Opponents are only shooting 41-percent for the year, 28-percent from behind the arc, against the Blue Devils.

In a down year for the ACC Duke has a half-game lead for first-place over Maryland with eight games left to play because of stellar play from it's guards. Jon Scheyer is second in the conference with 18.9 points per game, Nolan Smith is just behind him at 18.1 and Kyle Singler is seventh with 16.6.

"We ideally would like to have balanced scoring, but it's not really how it is," Singler said. "The responsibility that Jon, Nolan and myself has, we don't necessarily look at it as pressure because we have each other to help each other out."

One thing that may favor North Carolina is improved play down low. The Heels grab three rebounds more per game. Ed Davis leads the team with 9.8 rebounds, which is 29th in the nation, and adds 13.9 points per game. Deon Thompson averages 14.4 points and 6.4 boards, but he is the only other Carolina player to average more than 10 points and five rebounds a game.

Over the last seven games, North Carolina is on a 1-6 stretch has seen the team score less than 70 points per game, a full 10 points fewer than it's season average.