Virginia at North Carolina: 2021-22 collge basketball game preview, TV schedule
Both North Carolina and Virginia both could use a victory this weekend. Who will come out on top with a resume-building win?
TV schedule: Saturday, January 8th, 1:00 pm ET. ESPN
Arena: Dean E. Smith Center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Coming into the season, there was a consensus top-4 in the ACC in Duke, Florida State, North Carolina, and Virginia in some kind of order. However, only the Blue Devils have been as good as advertised so far midway through the season. The other three have had their fair share of struggles, including these two facing off.
North Carolina (10-4, 2-1) ended a two-game winning streak earlier this week to Notre Dame, trailing by double-digits for a large part. They got 21 points and 17 rebounds from forward Armando Bacot and 34 points combined from RJ Davis and Caleb Love but it was the defense that once again failed them, giving up 13 made three-pointers and only forcing seven turnovers.
The loss itself isn’t killer for the Tar Heels but it reinforces the perception that Duke is the only “good” team in the ACC and they currently are the only top-50 team in the NET, so North Carolina and its opponent Virginia (9-5, 3-1) doesn’t have many opportunities for marquee wins; they just have to win as many as possible.
There have been plenty who have buried the Cavaliers already but they have won back-to-back conference road games at Clemson and Syracuse, scoring 74 and 75 points respectively. In the 10-point win over the Tigers on Tuesday, East Carolina transfer Jayden Gardner had arguably his best game of the season, going for a game-high 23 points on 7/11 shooting and 9/10 from the free throw line. Armaan Franklin had 13 points while four other Virginia players chipped in with eight points.
This is a matchup between the best defense in the ACC (Virginia) against the best offense in the ACC (North Carolina). Both teams aren’t good at the other end but in this scenario, that would favor the Tar Heels since they’ve looked their worst against potentially potent offenses. Nothing about this UVA team should scare them and North Carolina has three bigs to put on Gardner inside. And if he doesn’t have a good game, the Cavaliers’ odds of winning are low.
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This isn’t a “must-win” for either side but the loser would have less wiggle room for bad losses in league play down the road. The offense for Virginia has improved but it’s still not as good as the Tar Heels, who should bounce back from this week’s loss to get the victory.
Prediction: North Carolina 75, Virginia 65