NCAA Basketball Free Pick – Thursday, March 10, 2011
NC State and Maryland renew acquaintances in ACC Opening Round
The 58th edition of the Atlantic Coast Conference championship tournament gets underway on Thursday in Greensboro. One of the first round contests is a good news/bad news scenario as the tenth seeded Wolfpack of North Carolina State take on the seventh seeded Maryland Terrapins.
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North Carolina State (15-15, 5-11 ACC) vs. Maryland (18-13, 7-9 ACC)
Date/Time: Thursday, March 10, 7:00 PM ET
Venue: Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, NC.
Broadcast: ESPN
Money Line: OFF
Spread: Maryland -5 ½
Over/Under: N/A
Winning the game means that their season will extend by one game; this is the good news in this proposition. The bad news – the winner faces Duke in the next round of the tournament.
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Since the ACC tournament began in 1954, no seed lower than the sixth seed has won this championship. But if history is any indication of a potential for upsets, then one would be foolish to ignore NC State’s legacy in this tournament. The Wolfpack are one of five teams to win this tournament as a sixth seed, doing so in 1987. They also lost the title game in 1997 as an eighth seed, and following the league’s expansion in 2005, are the only squad to reach the finals as a tenth seed (2007), which they are for this tournament. Maryland also won the tournament as a sixth seed in 2004.
As for this year’s first round matchup between the schools, both teams enter this tournament trying to end their losing ways. NC State dropped their last two games and four of their last five. The Wolfpack do have a quality win over George Mason. However, with an RPI of 118 and a .500 overall record entering Thursday’s contest, the Wolfpack must win this tournament to get into the big dance next week.
Maryland looked like they could be a tournament team earlier in the season. But the Terrapins lost their last three straight regular season games, and have dropped five of their last seven. They did post a victory in their only matchup of the season with the Wolfpack, an 87-80 triumph in College Park back on February 20. Maryland is likely headed for the NIT unless they run the table this week in Greensboro.
Jordan Williams led the Terrapins in scoring for the season at 16.9 PPG, and he poured in a game-high 26 points in that victory against the Wolfpack. Terrell Stoglin added 25 for the winners that night, as Maryland won the game despite not making a single three-point shot.
Tracy Smith was the top scorer for the Wolfpack on the season, averaging 14.1 PPG. He led the Wolfpack in scoring in the loss to Maryland with 19 points.
Matt Free Prediction: This should be another tightly played contest between these two longtime rivals. In the end, we feel that Maryland’s consistency with the ball, scoring over 77 points while hitting 47.2% of their shots for the season on average, will allow them to advance.
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