NC State vs. Clemson Prediction and Pick for Friday, December 30 (It's Hunt or be 'Huntered' for Wolfpack)
By Josh Yourish
ACC basketball is officially in full swing starting today, and the NC State Wolfpack and Clemson Tigers would both greatly benefit from a conference win to launch them into 2023. Clemson is 2-0 in conference play and 10-3 overall, they could stay atop the ACC with a win at home today. They haven’t taken the floor since December 21, a 79-66 win over Georgia Tech.
The Wolfpack have had one less day of rest, their last outing was a 76-64 win over Louisville on December 22. At 11-3 they’re slight underdogs on the road in this one, so here are the odds.
NC State vs. Clemson Odds, Spread and Total
NC State vs. Clemson Prediction and Pick
Clemson isn’t just the Tigers, they’re the, "Hunters".
Chase Hunter is their leading scorer, averaging 14.8 points and 4.8 assists, which also leads the team. His running mate is Hunter Tyson, 14.5 points and a team leading 9.3 boards a game. Those two lead one of the best shooting teams in the country. They’re 39.4% from three, 16th best and 47.6% from the field, 55th in the nation.
It’s their stellar shooting that allows them to hunt their opponents methodically with a well below average pace of play, 215th in possessions per game. Though that means if they go cold, they don’t stand much of a chance. In their most recent loss, they shot 14.3% from three and fell 76-58 to Loyola Chicago.
I worry about Clemson’s shooting coming out of the holiday break. It’s only nine days between games, but that’s enough for some shots to stop falling and if that’s the case then they’re in big trouble. It’s nice to back a lethal shooting team because if they’re hot, they can run away with games, but the flip side is if they’re not, they struggle to create any reliable offense. Terquavion Smith will almost always create offense for himself, 17.9 points a game, or others, 5.4 assists. He also keeps the Wolfpack playing at a much faster pace than Clemson does. He will need that tempo from the start because if they don’t hunt for an early lead, the Hunters could bury them with a barrage from deep.
Pace is often a better predictor than shooting because it’s more reliable, so I’ll take NC State, but they better hunt or they’ll be Huntered.
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Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change