Coming off a loss to Wofford and minus star point guard Cole Anthony for 4-6 weeks, North Carolina has their work cut out for them as they hit the road to take on red-hot Gonzaga.
When college basketball schedules were announced, one of the must-see non-conference matchups was North Carolina’s trip to Spokane to take on Gonzaga. While the Bulldogs have lived up to the hype, the Tar Heels are a disappointing 6-4 and find themselves in some serious trouble thanks to an injury to point guard Cole Anthony.
A knee injury will keep Anthony out of action for 4-6 weeks, and this is a big blow for the Tar Heels, who have struggled with injury problems in the early season. Anthony has averaged 19.1 points and 6.3 rebounds per game, massive production that North Carolina will have a very difficult time replacing.
North Carolina enters this contest on a three-game losing skid, and their odds of snapping that skid without Anthony are long because Gonzaga has been on a tear. Mark Few’s team has lost only once this season, a blowout against Michigan in the final of the Battle 4 Atlantis, but they have built a very strong resume in the non-conference season.
Gonzaga already has three victories over ranked Pac-12 teams, including a pair last week at Washington and Arizona. The Bulldogs have a potent offense featuring six different players averaging double figures in scoring, and their 85.8 points per game ranks as the fifth-best mark in the country.
The key for North Carolina to survive this game will be to find a way to slow down Bulldogs’ forward Filip Petrusev, who leads the team in both scoring (15.8 points per game) and rebounding (8.4 boards per game). This is nothing against Corey Kispert, who knocks down 40.3 percent of his 3-point attempts, or veteran Killian Tillie, but limiting Petrusev’s impact on the game is North Carolina’s best chance in this contest.
The Tar Heels also need to find a way to get more offense from their secondary scorers like Garrison Brooks and Armando Bacot to help fill the void from Anthony’s absence. A loss here wouldn’t be a killer for North Carolina, but a win without their best player would certainly be a boost with a matchup against UCLA looming on Saturday.
How to watch North Carolina at Gonzaga
Date: Wednesday, Dec. 18
Time: 9:00 p.m. ET
Location: Spokane, WA
Venue: McCarthy Athletic Center
TV: ESPN2
Live Stream: WatchESPN
Odds: Gonzaga -11 (The Action Network)
Prediction: Gonzaga