College Basketball Odds - Syracuse vs. Miami Game Preview

Though both the Miami Hurricanes and Syracuse Orange find themselves on the right side of the bubble heading into big boy tourney week, each would love nothing more than to go on a deep run in the ACC Tournament so as to improve upon their potential seeding come the Big Dance. Joe Lunardi of ESPN currently has the Canes listed as No. 7 seeds in the West and the Orange a No. 10 seed in the East.

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Back-to-back losses at Virginia Tech and Florida State certainly put a damper on things for Jim Larranaga’s squad to close out the regular season. Before that, Davon Reed had helped lead his club to seven wins in their previous eight with triumphs against Duke and Virginia sprinkled in the mix. Though it blew covers in its last two road tilts, Miami had covered the closing number in its previous three games played away from Coral Gables. It split its four neutral court matchups with the losses incurred against Iowa State and Florida.

The regular season was an interesting one for Jimmy Boeheim’s kids who opened the year with four straight wins but then fizzled through the New Year. Once the calendar flipped to 2017, Andrew White III and his mates put it into another gear scoring last second wins on numerous occasions and scoring some big time scalps along the way. But after rolling into the month of February, Syracuse went on to win just two of its final six games though both wins occurred over the last two weeks. The Orange failed to win or cover their pair of neutral court games against UConn and South Carolina.

Key Stat

The Hurricanes have played a stingy brand of defensive basketball all season long. Miami’s given up an average of just 63.4 points per game ( No. 22 ) and a 41.0 percent success rate from the field ( No. 44 ). On top of that, they’ve defended the arc at a 32.8 percent clip ( No. 68 ) and allow an average of just 6.3 made three pointers per game ( No. 46 ). They enter the ACC tourney giving up less than 60 points per game the last six times they took to the hardwood, and haven’t surrendered 70+ points since the beginning of February.

Last Meeting

The Orange lives and dies from long range with 35.0 percent of their points coming from downtown. Though Miami has proven to be adept at defending the arc, it didn’t stop Syracuse from converting 8 of its 19 attempts in the team’s January 4 meeting that saw Tyler Lydon and White III lead their team to the 70-55 win and cover as 2.5 point home underdogs. The Orange knocked down 56.8 percent of their total shots from the field, and actually owned the battle of the boards which was surprising with Miami owning a huge advantage over them on the glass heading into this matchup.

The win put an end to their two game losing streak in the recent rivalry to move them to 5-2 and 4-3 against the spread in the last seven overall skirmishes. These teams have played to low scorers at a 3-1-1 clip over the last five, and this will mark the first time these programs will have crossed paths in the ACC Tournament.

Free College Basketball ATS Pick

As much as I’d like to believe the Canes have it in them to go on a run in this tournament, I just don’t trust their offense to do enough here against Syracuse’s 2-3 zone that gave them major fits in the first meeting. Miami is a poor shooting guard oriented team that needs its defense to help win it ball games. That defense showed a very limited ability to prevent Syracuse from doing as it pleased in the first meeting, and I don’t expect this go round to be much different. While the Orange was even worse on the road than Miami, I still think they find a way to pull this out and advance to take on North Carolina where they will likely get destroyed.

College Basketball Odds: Syracuse 70, Miami 65

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