The North Carolina Tar Heels are back, and they are one of the favorites to win the NCAA Tournament. They have demonstrated what they can do in the ACC, and even though there is an elephant in the room called the Duke Blue Devils, they have slayed enough dragons that no one can overlook their ability to go all the way.

They are a #1 seed as well, and they begin their quest against the Iona Gaels on Friday night (9:20 PM ET) at the Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio.

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North Carolina, under Roy Williams, is 27-6, and they have a couple of victories over Duke under their belt. Granted, those came while Zion Williamson was not in the lineup, and they did get beaten by the Blue Devils in the ACC title game. But when you look at some of the schools they have defeated, and by margins, nothing they have done is a fluke.

For example, they have a 13-point win over Gonzaga, which went into its own conference tournament (the West Coast Conference) as the #1 team in the country (before losing to Saint Mary's), and teams like Florida State, Virginia Tech, Louisville, Wofford and others went down by double digits.

Iona (17-15) may have something of a deceiving record, as they've won their last ten games. What that also means, however, is that they were 7-15 at one time, playing a schedule that was not the most challenging in the world. And frankly, their victory in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) isn't going to mean a whole lot here.

In the odds at BetAnySports through which we will make our March Madness predictions on this one, the Tar Heels are favored by a lot of points:

North Carolina Tar Heels -22.5
Iona Gaels +22.5

Over 166 points -110
Under 166 points -110

Iona is experienced; all of the principal members of the rotation are seniors or juniors. One of them is sharp point guard Rickey McGill, who averages 15.5 points per game and makes a difference on the defensive end as well. McGill has played 93% of all the available minutes for Iona, which is ninth highest in the country and makes him probably the most invaluable player on this roster.

What we see here, though, is that Iona probably lacks the defensive prowess to stay with North Carolina for very long. They are just 299th in the nation (out of 353 teams) in defending triples, and even though UNC isn't dependent upon threes, they can get hurt that way. It will depend on how well the Heels can establish themselves from out there as the game unfolds. There is no way Iona is going to be able to contend with North Carolina on the inside, as Roy Williams' team is 19th nationally in the category of "Average Height."

Iona has not proven to be a deep squad either, while UNC, which has the second highest rebounding margin in the country, uses its bench a little more. They obviously have highly-recruited players in reserve, and the reason we mention such a thing is that this is likely to be a game where there is a scoring gap between the two, and North Carolina, which is very comfortable playing an up-tempo game (FIFTH in offensive pace, in fact) has the ability to stretch a lead and maintain it, rather than let it shrink inside the number. And Iona has had NO pointspread success at all when venturing outside of the conference, going 0-11 ATS in those situations. So we'll lay the points.

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