North Carolina Tar Heels
Seed: 2
Record: 26-7
Conference: ACC
vs.
Long Island Blackbirds
Seed: 15
Record: 27-5
Conference: Northeast
Date: Friday, March 18
Time: 7:15 pm Eastern
Location: Charlotte, NC
Region: East
Long Island deserved a higher seed; alas, they have to play North Carolina in Charlotte.
Team Comparisons with SportsRatings Statistics
North Carolina Long Island
Power Ratings
Strength: #15 (#15 of 68) Strength: #111 (#57 of 68)
Neutral court: #12 Neutral court: #113
Injuries Adj: #8 Injuries Adj: #112
Tempo-free: #15 Tempo-free: #120
Offense: #48 Offense: #81
Defense: #4 Defense: #193Special Analyses
2nd half of season: #14 2nd half of season: #116
Last 6 games: #19 Last 6 games: #122
Consistency: #327 Consistency: #88
Deep Run Potential: #23 Deep Run Potential: #101
Upset Potential: #8 Upset Potential: #124
- Wins vs. tournament teams (8): NC Asheville+11, Kentucky+2, Clemson+10, Florida St.+20, @Clemson+2, @Florida St.+2, Duke+14, Clemson+OT
- Losses to tournament teams (5): =Vanderbilt-7, @Illinois-12, Texas-2, @Duke-6, =Duke-17
- Other losses (2): =Minnesota-5, @Georgia Tech-20
Key Info: There are a few interesting personnel stories concerning North Carolina. The first one that people took note of was of course, Harrison Barnes, the nation's #1 recruit and projected top draft pick after his certain 1st team All-American freshman year. Early on, it was clearly not going to happen that way; Barnes showed inconsistency at best, and went 0-12 against Minnesota in game three. Written off as a disaster by some, Barnes eventually became pretty good. Not lottery pick good, yet, but it seems clear that nerves and high expectations affected his performance. He scored 40 points in UNC's overtime win against Clemson.
The other story is point guard Kendall Marshall, who took over from Larry Drew, who has since departed. Counting only the games where Marshall ran the point, North Carolina jumps from #12 to #8 in our power ratings. However, a lot of that effect is simply the exclusion of UNC's worst game, the 20 point loss to Georgia Tech. Omitting that single game from the "Larry Drew" games reduces the impact from over 3 points to 1.5 points. The effect was also a lot bigger before the Tar Heels' late struggles with Miami and Clemson and the big loss to Duke.
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Season overview: Long Island (27-5)
- Wins vs. tournament teams (0): none
- Losses to tournament teams (1): @St. Peter's-3
- Other losses (5): Robert Morris-1, Iona-6, @Northwestern-16, @St. Francis PA-15
Key Info: If this chart could tell a story, it would be about Icarus, who flew too close to the sky and had his wings melt. The Blackbirds had some early struggles, losing four of six at one stretch, but then began to win, and win by bigger margins, until they had won three straight by 20 or more points. On January 22, they were probably overconfident going up against lowly St. Francis, PA, and they fell miserably by 15 points. Chastened, and less confident, the team regrouped and won the rest of their games, but they never reached their previous heights.
Whether that's true or not is conjecture, but it sure looks like that loss made the team more cautious, and more consistent, if less explosive than they were previously. LIU has balanced scoring with forwards Jamal Olasewere and Julian Boyd both averaging 12.9 per outing. They were 16-2 in conference but still had to settle for a 15-seed; their 0-1 record against tournament teams didn't help.
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Game Analysis: Overconfidence won't be a problem for LIU against North Carolina, but everything else will be, including playing practically in the other team's back yard.
Vegas Line:
North Carolina by 17 1/2
Power rating spread
North Carolina by 17.1
% Chance to win
North Carolina: 89%
Long Island: 11%
The oddsmakers and Strength Power Rating agree for the most part on the spread. Long Island's 11% winning chance is pretty generous, since 15-seeds are 4 of 104 (4%) against 2-seeds.
Bottom line: LIU has played very consistently since their worst game, so I'll use that range of games for the projection below. It turns out there's not much difference.
Final prediction: North Carolina 88, Long Island 72
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