North Carolina got caught looking ahead to this matchup last game. The Blue Devils are playing their third road game in their last four and haven’t been as efficient, offensively, on the road. North Carolina has an edge on the boards, especially offensively, while their offense averages 90 points at home this season. Their defense has been holding opponents to 68.1 points per game and should be extra focused for this rivalry game coming off the loss to the Yellow Jackets.

While Hubert Davis and Jon Scheyer each have implemented aspects from the predecessors, I think we do need to start out with a new basis for UNC-Duke rivalry trends. It is not in Duke's best interest to try and run with the Tar Heels, instead relying on matchup advantages they get with Kyle Filipowski in half-court sets. North Carolina's excellence on defense comes into play here, too, as the Tar Heels boast the best defensive efficiency in conference play by a sizable margin. It should be a thriller, just one that's a shade lower-scoring than expected.

Until last season, Duke-North Carolina was a consistent "over" for several years. And with last year looking like an anomaly in Chapel Hill, we're willing to erase it altogether. While the Tar Heels has their issues on Tuesday at Georgia Tech, the last month had been a big celebration for the return of UNC to the nation's elite, with our suspicion that Caleb Love's transfer to Arizona was the best thing that could have happened to this offense. Especially as portal adds Cormac Ryan and Harrison Ingram have seamlessly adapted to their new locals, and not gotten in the way of RJ Davis running the offense. UNC had been scoring at an 85 ppg clip in the five before the GT loss. Play Duke-UNC "Over"