Alabama vs. North Carolina March Madness Preview and Prediction

In the No. 4 vs. No. 1 matchup in the NCAA Tournament West Region, the Alabama Crimson Tide face the North Carolina Tar Heels in Sweet 16 action.

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How to Watch Alabama vs. North Carolina

When: 9:39 p.m. ET on Thursday, March 28th

Where: crpyto.com Arena in Los Angeles, CA

Watch: CBS

Odds for Alabama vs. North Carolina

(odds current at time of publish)

Spread: North Carolina -3.5

Total: 174

DraftKings Betting Splits | Live College Basketball Odds | Alabama vs. North Carolina Matchup

West Region No. 4 Alabama Crimson Tide

Nate Oats is still the head coach of the Crimson Tide, so they naturally have a top-five offense in college basketball. Alabama plays at one of the fastest paces in the nation, and the team launches a ton of 3s — and drills them at a high clip. Mark Sears has been as good as any guard in the country this year, and he’s a player that people could fall in love with in the tournament. The issue with Alabama is that the defense is an absolute nightmare. The Tide don’t even crack the nation’s top 100 on that end of the floor. So, they’ll be vulnerable if exposed to a team that can get the job done on both offensively and defensively. 

West Region No. 1 North Carolina Tar Heels

The 2022-23 season was a rough one for the Tar Heels. After finishing as the runner-up in Hubert Davis’ first season, the team missed the tournament last year. North Carolina then lost Caleb Love to Arizona in the transfer portal, but the team added some talent in versatile forward Harrison Ingram and sharpshooter Cormac Ryan. Putting those two around Amando Bacot and RJ Davis, two members of the Carolina team that went to the finals, ended up being the magic sauce. This Tar Heels team can really get after it on the defensive end, where they’re top 10 in adjusted defensive rating no matter where you look. And North Carolina has the ability to keep up with anybody offensively.  

Alabama vs. North Carolina Preview & Prediction

There was a lot of talk heading into the NCAA Tournament about the current form of the Crimson Tide. Their offense had taken a bit of a tumble and seemingly everybody was scoring at will on the defense. Now we’ll get a true barometer of where the Tide are because they are stepping up in class in a big way against North Carolina.

Charleston and Grand Canyon were two very different opponents to face in the first two games of the tourney, but the Tide wound up playing a No. 13 seed and a No. 12 seed. Grand Canyon was just 2-for-20 from 3 in Sunday’s second-round matchup, which could not have come at a better time for Alabama because they only shot 36.9% from the floor and 25.8% from 3.

North Carolina’s defense has been a little bit inconsistent at times, but they’ve played 22 of their games with fewer than 1.0 points per possession allowed, including four of their last five games. Alabama’s defense has only turned in nine such performances and the last one came back on Feb. 3 prior to Grand Canyon’s awful shooting effort this past weekend.

Given that this will be a pretty up-tempo game, it will be interesting to see how Alabama’s defense hangs in. North Carolina went 9-3 against Quadrant 1 opponents prior to the NCAA Tournament, while Alabama went just 4-10. The Crimson Tide did play a top-five schedule, while the Tar Heels played a top-20 schedule, but North Carolina was definitely stronger against comparable or better competition.

Senior guard Mark Sears was pretty beaten up after the game against Grand Canyon, but he’ll have a few days to rest up. Alabama will need all hands on deck and all scoring options present and accounted for based on the statistical comparison between these two teams.

Estimated Score: Coming soon.

For expert predictions, go to our college basketball best bets page.

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