Barstool NCAA Tournament Preview: North Carolina-Maryland. ALSO, Gambling Picks For The Weekend.

North Carolina-Maryland

Here are facts about North Carolina:

• Senior attackman Jimmy Bitter will be the best player on the field for either team.
• North Carolina has lost only three times this season. All three were exceptionally close games, all within conference, and against teams who have a very legitimate shot at being national champions.
• North Carolina’s roster is exceptionally talented. It might have more pound-for-pound athleticism than anyone in the country.
• No team wants to get in an up-and-down footrace with the Tarheels.

Here are facts about Maryland:

• John Tillman is the best coach in the NCAA to not have a national championship. If I were to choose a coach to lead my team in the tournament, he’d be my second pick of everyone remaining, behind Tierney. This is opposed to Breschi, who has never made it out of the second round.
• Maryland’s offense is about balance, balance, balance, balance. Anyone on this team can score at any given time. Anyone on that team can have multiple points in one game. Anyone on that team can win them a game.
• Matt Rambo when he has it going, is terrifying. That doesn’t always happen.
• Maryland hasn’t look great since midseason. If the tournament is about peaking at the right time, they ain’t doing that. They’re still prone to offensive dry spells.

So based on all this, why would I possibly pick Maryland? Because if this game becomes a vertical, up-and-down-the-field game, North Carolina will win. But I don’t think that will happen. I don’t trust North Carolina in the postseason. Never have, never will, and won’t until they prove to me that they’re capable of winning 2 NCAA tournament games in a row, something that hasn’t in their program history since 1993 (I will always call them the most overrated “elite” program in any college sport). Tillman will find a way to slow this game down to a pace where Maryland will win, because Tillman is a better coach than Breschi. His players will know how to do this, because they did it last year en route to a Final Four appearance. Maryland gets lots of shot clock calls, plays containment defense, and dictates pace en route to a 9-7 upset.

On Twitter @CharlieWisco , as always.

Gambling Picks

This round is on a lot of books. 5dimes has it, I’m sure a few other places do too, and if you have a guy, I’m sure you can show him the lines put out by these books and he’ll give you action on them. If you took my bets last year, you made around $1.90 for every dollar bet. So trust me. Here are what I think of this weekends lines.

Take Notre Dame -1.5 at +120. I’m thinking they have a close lead all game then score in the final minutes to go up by two. It’s a great price.

Take Ohio State +4.5 at -140. Denver being in Colorado is worth a point but it’s still too many points to take with a hot goalie in net for the Buckeyes. I might even parlay it with Syracuse -2.5 at -140 just to give it a better payout. Syracuse isn’t losing in the second round, and when they win, they have a tendency to win big.

Maryland outright at +220 for the upset. Perennial postseason winners tend to win, and perennial postseason losers tend to lose.