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The Radford Highlanders take on the North Carolina Tar Heels. Check out our college basketball odds series for our Radford North Carolina prediction and pick. Find how to watch Radford North Carolina.
What will we see from North Carolina basketball this season? The Tar Heels have had two straight disappointing regular seasons under head coach Hubert Davis. The main difference between the 2022 season and the 2023 season for North Carolina is that the 2022 team was able to make a very late surge in February and early March, ride that surge into the postseason, and race all the way to the Final Four and the national championship game as a No. 8 seed. From November through early February in the 2022 season, North Carolina was not a good team. The Tar Heels were on the middle of the NCAA Tournament bubble in mid-February of 2022, but in the final weeks of the season, they found something and were able to turn it into a deep March run.
In the 2023 season, that late run never happened. North Carolina obviously wants to get back to the Final Four after its 2022 burst as a No. 8 seed, but the bigger and more immediate priority for Davis as the UNC head coach — and the successor to the legendary Roy Williams — is to make Carolina an elite regular-season team again. Roy Williams, like predecessor Dean Smith, regularly led North Carolina to the top of the ACC. The Tar Heels could always be counted on to be a top-two seed in the NCAA Tournament. They might not have always made the Final Four, but they often got there and were annually in the hunt. North Carolina made 13 straight Sweet 16 appearances under Dean Smith from 1981 through 1993. That feat would not have been achieved without getting top-two or top-three seeds in the NCAA Tournament most seasons. Roy Williams won his three national titles at North Carolina (2005, 2009, 2017) as a No. 1 seed. Hubert Davis knows he can't bank on merely making the NCAA tourney and then getting hot as a medium-level seed in March. He needs to restore the Carolina Way, and the kinds of regular-season results Carolina fans expect. The new season begins against Radford.
Here are the Radford-North Carolina College Basketball odds, courtesy of FanDuel.
College Basketball Odds: Radford-North Carolina Odds
Radford Highlanders: +18.5 (-110)
North Carolina Tar Heels: -18.5 (-110)
Over: 143.5 (-118)
Under: 143.5 (-104)
How To Watch Radford vs North Carolina
Time: 7:00 pm ET / 4:00 pm PT
TV: ACC Network
Stream: fuboTV (click for a free trial)*
Why Radford Could Cover the Spread
The North Carolina Tar Heels are an unknown in college basketball this season. Will this team finally come together under Hubert Davis or not? Will this regular season feature the struggles we have seen the previous two years, or will the pieces fit this time? One mystery is how the Carolina lineup will function without guard Caleb Love, who has transferred to Arizona. It might take time for the pieces to mesh. If they don't mesh right away, Radford will cover the spread here.
Why North Carolina Could Cover the Spread
The absence of Caleb Love could be seen as a loss, but it could also be a gain for UNC. The Tar Heels know that their offense struggled when Love struggled. He was not a consistent shooter. He often shot the Heels out of games, not back into them. The offense might be better as a result of addition by subtraction. If that's the case, Carolina should win this game by 25 and cover.
Final Radford-North Carolina Prediction & Pick
This is a game to stay away from, since North Carolina enters this season as an unknown quantity in college basketball.
Final Radford-North Carolina Prediction & Pick: Radford +18.5
