Tuesday night college basketball and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish will travel to Littlejohn Coliseum to take on the Clemson Tigers. The game has a start time of 7:00 pm (Eastern) and will be televised on ESPN 2. Current Vegas betting odds have Notre Dame listed as 2 point favorites, while the total is set at 150.
Analysis: The Notre Dame Fighting Irish will look to bounce back from a humiliating 30 point loss at Duke on Saturday. The loss dropped the Irish to 21-4 overall for the year, but they are still in second place in the ACC with a 9-3 record. Notre Dame has gone 15-33-3 ATS in their last 51 games following a S.U. loss and 10-24-1 ATS in their last 35 vs. the ACC. The Irish have been a very good offensive squad this year, ranking 11th in scoring (80.0 ppg), 2nd in shooting (51.5%), 18th in 3 point shooting (40.1%) and 123rd in FT shooting (70.3%). The defense for this team has been rather average, ranking 156th in points allowed (65.2 ppg), 148th in defensive FG% (42.2%) and 232nd in 3 point defense (35.0%).
The Clemson Tigers have been on a roll of late as they come in having won their last 4 games in a row, which has included road wins over NC State and Florida State. The Tigers are now 14-8 overall and 6-4 with in the ACC. Clemson has gone 5-2 ATS in their last 7 games following a S.U. loss, but just 1-4-2 ATS in their last 7 home games vs. a team with a winning road record. Clemson has not been a good offensive team this year, as they come in ranked 282nd in scoring (63.0 ppg), 274th in shooting (41.3%), 308th in 3 point shooting (30.1%) and 283rd in FT shooting (65.9%). Defensively the Tigers have been very good, ranking 48th in points allowed (60.5 ppg), 31st in defensive FG% (38.8%) and 65th in 3 point defense (31.3%).
Pick: Going with the Under in this game. After allowing 90 points in a 30 point loss I full expect the Irish to slow their game down a bit and concentrate on defense. Of course they are playing Clemson so they don't really have a choice of whether they want to slow the game down or not. Clemson has played 11 ACC games and just one of those games put up more than 125 points and that was the 133 points that were scored in a road game vs Pittsburgh. Overall Clemson home games have averaged just 114.6 ppg, while their ACC home games have averaged just 117.2 ppg. I know that Irish games have been high scoring on the road, but I just don't see this game getting enough possessions from each team to put it over the total. Clemson will assure that happens with their slow brand of play. The Irish played at Georgia Tech earlier and they also slow the pace and just 121 points were scored in that game. 61-58 sounds like a good score for this one.
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