The ACC regular season begins today with a good, early matchup as Pittsburgh travels to North Carolina State to take on Mark Gottfried’s young squad.
The Panthers sit at 12-1 and rank very well statistically in several key categories. Their only slip up was a neutral floor loss to Cincinnati back in mid December. They are a top ten unit on the offensive glass and have tremendous depth, as they are built in similar fashion to some many other teams assembled by Jamie Dixon over the years.
But their is a bit of a misperception surrounding this team and its offense. The longstanding issue with Pittsburgh teams has been their inability to make shots consistently and hit from the outside.
Both Lamar Patterson and Durand Johnson provide them better shooting options than in recent years, but this group still ranks only 193 in three point field goals percentage. They do move the ball tremendously well as they are sixth in assist per field goal made.
While the Wolfpack are quite mediocre on the defensive end, I’m not sure it hurts them all that much here. Not only is this a difficult road matchup for the Panthers, but it also comes with an early start time. The Panthers, for whatever reason, have historically been quite bad with early day games (check back to the Cincy game last year and their NCAA tournament fallout against Wichita for further evidence).
As far as N.C. State goes, they are an interesting club. Gottfried has been forced to essentially replace his entire lineup save for T.J. Warren, and it has resulted in some early struggles. They have weathered the storm, however, and recently picked up impressive wins against Tennessee and East Carolina.
Their primary weakness is that they are a jump shooting team to a large extent. They do not get to the line as much as they should and are still growing on offense as the result of working with a very young group of guards to start the year.
This was evident in the Missouri loss. They got to the line only 14 times compares to the Tigers 26 chances, despite the game being played at PNC Arena in Raleigh. Missouri’s trio of guards dictated the tempo and ultimate outcome thanks in large part to a late second half 25-15 run that put the game into their hands.
These teams play at a similar pace, but the Wolfpack would prefer to get out and run when the opportunity shows itself. This total has been set at 138.5, an indicator that Vegas expects more of an up and down game than what we are used to with Pitt.
Gottfried’s club is not a great team statistically in the rebounding department, but T.J. Warren, Jordan Vandenburg, Kyle Washington and BeeJay Anya create a nice mix of large bodies inside to combat the Panthers here.
This game will likely come down to the Wolfpack guards. Anthony Barber, Desmond Lee and Ralston Turner are athletic, but they need to prove themselves defensively here. The Pitt guards are quality system players who do most of their work on the defensive end. N.C. State gives up very little in that matchup.
Pitt has yet to deal with a team that can get the ball inside and attack them down low. Warren gives them that option so long as he stays disciplined and does not wander out to the three point line as he has done at times this season.
Pitt’s roster is the deeper one, but there is value on the four point dog. I had Pitt -2 in this one and feel this game is closer to a true pick ’em than it is a spread of this margin. Spread bets are relatively split here, but the Wolfpack should be up for this game and I expect it to be a tight one.
NC State +4
