Back Tar Heels In "Road" Game

North Carolina vs. Oklahoma, 9:00 ET

Sometimes things about college sports really throw me off. The College Football playoffs and ranking system is completely wild to me, of course, but there are other things, more day-to-day in nature. Tonight, there is a game between North Carolina and Oklahoma, two ranked teams. That's not surprising, but the game is listed as North Carolina at Oklahoma. If you're a common man, like me, you'd think this would be played in... Oklahoma. Nope. This game is in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The Tar Heels have to feel pretty good about this one. To get to Charlotte from Chapel Hill it is roughly a two-hour drive. To get to Charlotte from Norman, Oklahoma, it is... a 16 hour drive. So, just slightly different than what the Tar Heel fans need to do. This isn't solely about home-court advantage, and in fact, the better playing team right now is Oklahoma. North Carolina comes in having lost two straight games, one against UConn and another against Kentucky. Both of those teams are ranked. The game against UConn wasn't particularly close with them losing by 11, but they made it respectable and lost by four against Kentucky (though, they probably should've won that game). On the season that puts their record at 7-3. They've had a couple of nice wins, one against Tennessee and another against Arkansas. The team is still led by guard RJ Davis who is averaging 21.6 points per game and has led them in scoring for the past six contests. You'll expect Oklahoma to blitz him whenever they can and get the ball out of his hands and make someone else beat them. That might lead to Armando Bacot or Harrison Ingram having big games tonight.

Porter Moser of the Oklahoma Sooners (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)

For Oklahoma, this has to feel like anything but a "home game" as I've mentioned already. Are they up for the challenge? They've played on a neutral court a few times this season, but that doesn't always mean anything. Also, again, I can't really classify this as a neutral court. They are 10-0 to start the year, but when you look at their schedule there are only really two wins that are impressive - one is against an Arkansas team that UNC also beat. The other is against USC, who was raked 23rd at the time. Oklahoma beat them on a neutral floor by two points. Unlike North Carolina, they have a variety of players leading the way in scoring on a given night. They average 84.4 points per game which is significant, but what I like is they have eight players on the squad averaging almost eight points or more per game. I do think they will have a tough time guarding the Tar Heels on the interior, but they should have Otega Oweh be able to slow down RJ Davis. That makes me think this will likely be an under, but both teams can get hot and are also probably both more offensive focused than defensively charged.

I'm taking the Tar Heels in this game -3. The game is essentially a home game, they've played a tougher schedule to this point, and I think they have a bigger edge. I'd call the backcourt maybe a wash between the teams (though you could convince me UNC is better). I also think the frontcourt of North Carolina is better. I'm backing them to win this one. I don't think it will be particularly close either.

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