No. 10 NC State vs. No. 3 Virginia Best Bet and Prediction for Friday, March 15
By Jovan Alford
The No. 10 seed NC State Wolfpack pulled off a huge upset in the ACC tournament, defeating the No. 2 seed Duke Blue Devils, 74-69, on Thursday in the quarterfinals.
The Wolfpack, who are the outside looking in for the NCAA Tournament, will look to keep their magical ride going when they face the No. 3 seed Virginia Cavaliers in the semifinals on Friday at 9:30 p.m. ET.
The Cavaliers survived a hard-fought quarterfinal game against the Boston College Eagles, winning 66-60, in overtime. According to Joe Lunardi's latest bracketology, Virginia is one of the last four teams in the tournament, so they can’t afford a slip-up against NC State.
The Wolfpack defeated the Cavaliers, 76-60, on Jan. 6 at PNC Arena. However, Virginia got revenge on NC State a few weeks later, winning by six points in overtime at John Paul Jones Arena.
Virginia is a short favorite over NC State on Friday night, so there’s a chance we could see another upset win by the Wolfpack. Below, we’ll break down this ACC matchup and see which team will advance to the championship game on Saturday night.
NC State vs. Virginia Odds, Spread and Total
NC State vs. Virginia Best Bet and Prediction
The Wolfpack picked up their third-straight win and second-consecutive upset win on Thursday night against the Blue Devils.
NC State did a phenomenal job defending the three-point line, holding Duke to 25 percent from the three-point line. Outside of their first win against Louisville, who shot 55.6 percent from deep earlier this week, the Wolfpack held their last two opponents to an average of 28.3 percent from beyond the arc.
On the other hand, Kevin Keatts’ crew was competitive on the glass (35-39) while being dialed in from three-point range (43.8 percent). The Wolfpack had five players in double figures, including DJ Horne, who dropped 18 points off the bench.
NC State also received an excellent performance from junior forward Mohamed Diarra, who had a double-double consisting of 14 points and 16 rebounds. The Wolfpack hope that Diarra can do the same on Friday night as he’s struggled in the previous two meetings against the Cavaliers.
Speaking of Virginia, they didn’t shoot the ball well from beyond the arc (32 percent) against BC but did enough in the extra period (outscoring the Eagles by six points) to walk away with the win.
The Cavaliers didn’t do a great job against Boston College big man Quinten Post, who posted a game-high 23 points and 13 rebounds. UVA faces a formidable NC State frontcourt that features DJ Burns and Diarra.
During the regular season, the Cavaliers were the best defensive team in the ACC (59.2 points per game allowed), which will be a huge factor in tonight’s contest.
However, UVA was surprisingly one of the better three-point shooting teams in the conference (36.5 percent). Meanwhile, NC State struggled to defend the three-point arc during the regular season (35.7 percent).
But to their credit, the Wolfpack has done a tremendous job over the last two games, which has helped them walk away with wins. With how both teams are playing right now, it’s hard to predict who will move on to the championship game.
That said, I’ll take the OVER in this matchup, which has hit in UVA’s last two games, while the UNDER is currently 2-1 in the Wolfpack’s ACC tournament games.
Odds refresh periodically and are subject to change