{"id":20428,"date":"2011-12-21T14:15:53","date_gmt":"2011-12-21T19:15:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=20428"},"modified":"2011-12-21T14:15:53","modified_gmt":"2011-12-21T19:15:53","slug":"college-basketball-picks-texas-longhorns-vs-north-carolina-tar-heels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/college-basketball-picks-texas-longhorns-vs-north-carolina-tar-heels-20428\/","title":{"rendered":"College Basketball Picks: Texas Longhorns vs. North Carolina Tar Heels"},"content":{"rendered":"

Texas Longhorns at No. 6 North Carolina Tar Heels
\nWednesday, 12\/21\/11, 7:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ESPN2
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 North Carolina -12
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 North Carolina -10.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 153
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 155.5
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Texas Longhorns will look to make it five straight against the North Carolina Tar Heels Wednesday night<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Texas takes to the road for the first time since picking up a 69-59 win over the UCLA Bruins as two-point underdogs and comes off an impressive 77-65 home victory over the Temple Owls.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t know if anything has clicked, but we have steadily improved,\u201d commented Longhorns senior Clint Chapman.\u00a0 \u201cThat happens when you have a young team like this.\u201d\u00a0 Head coach Rick Barnes starts three freshmen, but are led by junior guard J\u2019Covan Brown, who is averaging 19.3 points per game.\u00a0 Texas is 6-6 ATS as an underdog over the past two-plus seasons.<\/p>\n

The Longhorns will be meeting the Tar Heels for the seventh time and have won four straight contests in a series that dates back to the 1992-93 season.\u00a0 Texas has been an absolute force on the boards over the last four contests, recording a +16.8 rebounding margin.\u00a0 Barnes\u2019 squad has always been strong defensively, allowing an average of just 62.5 points per game on 36.5 percent shooting.\u00a0 Offensively, the team has had five different players lead the squad in scoring during its current seven-game win streak.<\/p>\n

North Carolina is set to play its third game in five nights in hosting Texas and will look for its first win in this series since Nov. 24, 1994, in the Smith Center.\u00a0 The Tar Heels simply overwhelmed lesser competition in the past two games to get ready for this high-profile matchup.\u00a0 \u201cI thought we were going to come out with a little more fire than we did, just getting prepared for Texas,\u201d commented Longhorns sophomore Reggie Bullock.\u00a0 North Carolina is 10-7 ATS in December the last two-plus seasons.<\/p>\n

The Tar Heels have really made some headway this year from beyond the arc, shooting 39 percent as a team, which is greatly improved from their 32.8 percent mark from a year ago.\u00a0 North Carolina has hit 10 or more three points twice through 12 games after going so just five times in 37 games a season ago.\u00a0 The program will put its 23-game win streak on the line tonight inside the Smith Center, which is the second-longest in the venue\u2019s 26-year history.\u00a0 North Carolina hasn\u2019t lost a home game to a non-ACC opponent in over six years inside the venue.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Longhorns due to their 6-1 ATS mark as an underdog, while the Tar Heels are 1-4 ATS as a home favorite of 7 to 12.5 points.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on a winning season and let the college basketball handicappers at Maddux Sports line your pockets with cash.\u00a0 Long term packages are available now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Texas Longhorns at No. 6 North Carolina Tar Heels Wednesday, 12\/21\/11, 7:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ESPN2 Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 North Carolina -12 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 North Carolina -10.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 153 Current Total:\u00a0 155.5 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Texas takes to the road for the first time since picking up a 69-59 win over the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":19168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[387,5744,32,3781,5955,496],"class_list":["post-20428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-acc","tag-cbb","tag-north-carolina-tar-heels","tag-rick-barnes","tag-smith-center","tag-texas-longhorns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20428"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20430,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20428\/revisions\/20430"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}