After the way that Carolina played the majority of the game against Syracuse a couple of weeks ago, you wouldn’t have thought there was any way that the Tar Heels would have been underdogs to the Orange. Of course they played that game with Henri Veesaar and Caleb Wilson, and going into the game no one knew if both were going to be out. Considering how they looked against NC State without the pair, the +2.5 line made sense.
As tip-off approached, though, it was announced that Veesaar would be able to play, so you would have that that would have been enough to change things around. It did drop some, but at tip Syracuse still stayed a 1.5-point favorite, and early on the Tar Heels showed a lot of the issues that fans had seen the last few games. However, Veesaar made a massive difference, and while the Orange kept within spitting distance, Carolina held control and ultimately pulled away in the second half—a big difference over what happened in the Smith Center.
The win could portend good things as the Tar Heels have not been great away from the Smith Center this season. They have yet to lose a game at home (furiously looking for every piece of wood to knock right now). The good thing? The next three games are at home in the Smith Center, and that stretch starts tonight against Louisville, continues Saturday night against Virginia Tech, and then concludes with Senior Night next Tuesday against Clemson. All three promise to be tough games.
That includes Louisville. They also have had an up-and-down conference season, entering tonight tied with the Tar Heels at 9-5, good for a sixth place tie and just one game ahead of SMU. A double-bye for the ACC Tournament is still on the table for both squads, but both know they’ll likely need to win out in order to get there. The Cardinals had a five-game win streak snapped against SMU in Dallas before recovering this past Saturday against Georgia Tech.
What version of the Cardinals will show up? The one that lost to Duke by 31 and Tennessee by 31 on the road, or the one that beat Arkansas and blew out Pittsburgh on the road? Now that Carolina has established that they can play good basketball with Veesaar on the floor, it’s now on them to keep the boat afloat until Wilson returns.
Tonight was going to feature a couple of big guests, one being RJ Davis. Davis was going to be on hand to see his number officially revealed as an honored jersey in the rafters. However, as you may have heard travel is a bit of a nightmare because of a nor’easter hitting the upper east coast. Thus, RJ will no longer be there tonight There will still be another special guest, though—why we don’t know.
Who knows if he’ll just be in the stands or if there will be some sort of formal presentation, but either way if you’re going to be in Chapel Hill tonight don’t be surprised to see him featured at some point. If you aren’t going to be there, here’s how you can catch the action.
- Time: 7:00 PM ET
- Location: Dean E. Smith Center — Chapel Hill, NC
- TV: ESPN with Dave O’Brien doing Play-by-play, Jay Williams on color, and Molly McGrath on the sidelines
- Radio: Tar Heel Sports Network with Jones Angell, Tyler Hansbrough or Tyler Zeller, and Adam Lucas. Here’s a list of affiliates airing the THSN broadcast. You can also listen to them on GoHeels.com, The Varsity Network, Tune In, and Sirius XM on channel 84.
- Streaming: Streaming is available on WatchESPN or the app.
- Line: UNC +3.5