No team in the NCAA Tournament has ever reached the Elite Eight as a #15 seed. The St.Peter's Peacocks have already done that. So it goes without saying that the accomplishment would be even greater if they were to get to the Final Four. That's a done deal if they can defeat the North Carolina Tar Heels at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia. BetOnline patrons can see the ballgame on CBS at about 5:10 PM ET.

When you look at St.Peter's, it's not an offensive juggernaut. They are not blistering shooters, particularly from two-point range (just 46%), and they are barely inside the nation's top 300 when it comes to ball control (offensive turnover percentage). But they have been able to thrive by playing unbelievable defense against the opposition.

If you can believe it, against two of the nation's top ten teams (Kentucky and Purdue) and another which was on a 21-game winning streak (Murray State) they have allowed just 40% shooting from the field, and 28.6% from the arc. They have just put forth a supreme effort, and head coach Shaheen Holloway has come up with the right formula every time.

North Carolina has beaten tremendous teams too, when you consider the quality of Baylor (defending national champion) and UCLA (a Final Four team from last year) the last two games. And it seems as though the back-to-back thrashings they took at the hands of Miami and Wake Forest (combined 50 points) early in the ACC season are a distant memory.

And so you have to give a lot of credit to Hubert Davis, who came in as a first-year head coach with big shoes to fill in one of the most high-profile jobs in the land.

Here are the NCAA Tournament odds on this game, as they are posted at BetOnline:

North Carolina Tar Heels -8.5 (-115)
St. Pater's Peacocks +8.5 (-105)

Over 137.5 Points -110
Under 137.5 Points -110

Let's put this as simply as we possibly can - this is a matchup between one team that knows how to defend without fouling and another that doesn't.

And the difference is that one of the teams really needs to get to the line.

In raw numbers, St.Peter's, which does not throw a lot of threes up there, has depending on drawing fouls all year. They have, in fact, tallied 21.8% of their total points at the line, and that is a percentage that is 20th highest in the nation.

That's why it's unfortunate for them that North Carolina is one of the best teams in the country when it comes to defending without fouling. Only 13.7% of the points their foes have scored has come from free throws, and there are only a handful of teams who can say that. So in effect, the Heels take away the thing St. Peter's does best.

And the Peacocks can't seem to help fouling. No less than 25.5% of the points their opponents score is at the charity stripe. Only Cal St.-Bakersfield has a higher percentage out of 358 teams in Division I ball. They yielded 33 free throws to Kentucky and 25 to Murray State. And they're unlucky in the sense that UNC is a sizzling 76.9% in foul shooting.

All that is too much to ignore. UNC will win the battle of the boards, and at the line. As such, this is a reasonable number to lay with the TAR HEELS.

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