NCAA basketball on Sunday night and we will see the North Carolina Tar Heels take on the Iowa State Cyclones in the 3rd round of the NCAA Tournament, which is being played at the AT&T Center in San Antonio, Texas. The game has a start time of 5:15 pm (Eastern) and will be televised on CBS. Vegas odds have the Cyclones listed as 1.5 point favorites, while the total sits at 159.
Stat Pack: The Iowa State Cyclones beat the NC Central Eagles to reach the round of 32. The win now has the Cyclones at 27-7 on the year and they have won 5 in a row. The Cyclones have been dealt a blow when it was announced that Georges Niang will miss the rest of the tournament with a broken foot. The Cyclones are a high scoring team that averages 82.9 ppg, which is 6th in the nation and they do so on 47.1% shooting, which is 38th in the land. The Cyclones offense is led by Melvin Ejim, who scores 18.1 ppg, while and DeAndre Kane is close behind at 17.0 ppg. Kane leads the team in assists (192), while Dustin Hogue leads the team in rebounding (8.6 rpg), while also averaging 10.7 ppg. Although the Cyclones allow teams to hit just 41.4% of their shots (80th), this is not a good defense as they allow 73.9 ppg on the year, which is 278th in the nation. The Cyclones are a good rebounding team as they rank 21st, pulling down 38.8 rpg.
The North Carolina Tar Heels took out the Providence Friars in a close one to move on to the round of 32. the Heels have now won 12 of their last 14 games, to put their record at 24-9 on the year. The Heels come in averaging 76.3 ppg (50 th) on 46.3% shooting, but they are poor from long range (219 th) and the FT line (344 th). The Heels are led by Marcus Paige, who averages 17.4 ppg on the year. James Michael MCadoo is second at 14.2 ppg, while leading the team in rebounding at 6.7 rpg. Brice Johnson (10.4 ppg) and Leslie McDonald (10.3 ppg) round out the double digit scorers on the team. The Heels have played some solid defense this year ranking 67th in defensive FG% (41.1%) and 38th in 3 point defense (31.3%), while allowing just 69.1 ppg.
Pick: Going with the under in this game. The Cyclones will miss the point production from Niang and Carolina actually will play some defense. Both teams will look to run, but neither are really good shooting teams, so I see it hard for this one to reach 160 points. I would also possible look at the Cyclones in this one as well. The rest of the team will step up an play hard and the Heels are just too inconsistent on offense to think they can score enough to win this one. I see a 78-72 Iowa State win.
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