NC State will face Oakland on Saturday afternoon with a spot in the Sweet 16 on the line.
Both NC State and Oakland pulled off first-round upsets on Thursday in order to get to this position. The Wolfpack took care of business against Texas Tech while Oakland won a tight battle with No. 3-seeded Kentucky.
NC State has won 5 straight games as an underdog, but will now be the favorite in the round of 32 against Oakland. The Wolfpack have not covered the spread as a favorite in nearly a month (Feb. 24) and are just 8-12 against the number as a favorite all season. Oakland is 10-3 against the spread as an underdog this season.
To help with making predictions in this matchup, here’s some advanced stats via KenPom
for both teams:
Here are 3 player prop picks for this game:
We’re all living in DJ Burns’ world as far as I’m concerned. The NC State big man has been dominant during this winning streak for the Wolfpack, and I don’t see any reason that won’t continue on Saturday vs. Oakland. Burns has cleared this number in 4 of NC State’s 6 postseason games so far. He’s been incredibly efficient during that stretch, posting a true shooting percentage over 65% since the start of the ACC Tournament.
I took DJ Horne under 2.5 made 3-pointers for NC State’s first-round game against Texas Tech, and he burned me. I’m flipping to the over in this matchup for a couple of reasons. First, Horne appears to have broken out of his shooting slump after going 3-for-8 from long range against the Red Raiders. Second, Oakland does not defend the 3-point line very well. The Golden Grizzlies give up a lot of attempts (40.9% 3-point attempt rate ranks 295th in the country) and a decent number of makes (33.8%). Horne should be able to get up 8+ 3-point attempts in this game and I think he’ll make at least 3 of them.
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I took Jack Gohlke to make under 3.5 3-pointers in our Day 3 betting preview for the ACC, so I’ll double down and take his points under prop as well. Gohlke gets almost all of his points at the 3-point line (he has attempted 8 2-point shots all season) and NC State has defended the 3-ball very well this postseason. I think Gohlke will regress back to the mean a bit after making 10 3-pointers against Kentucky on Thursday.
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