Virginia vs. Miami Prediction and Odds for Tuesday December 20 (UVA on Upset Alert)
By Josh Yourish
The Virginia Cavaliers got knocked down a little bit to No. 6 after their 69-61 loss to Houston over the weekend, but they’re still one of the top teams in the country heading into the meat of the ACC schedule.
They start this stretch of conference games with No. 22 Miami. Jim Larrañaga’s Hurricanes are 12-1 and 1-0 in conference play.
The Cavaliers are favorites down in Miami, so let’s take a look at the odds for this ACC matchup.
Virginia vs. Miami Odds, Spread and Total
Virginia vs. Miami Prediction and Pick
When I’m betting on team’s I love to bet on the faster paced team that’s going to get more chances on offense to win out in the end, I feel that pace is predictive than efficiency because sometimes teams that play very slow will have a cold shooting night and then they’re toast.
Virginia naturally presents a quandary for me. The Cavaliers one of the five slowest paced teams in college basketball, and yet they score over 70 points a game and are hyper efficient on offense.
They’re also one of the best defensive teams in the nation and Tony Bennett has won a national championship with this style.
It’s an effective style of basketball and this team is really good, they’re just not for me. I much prefer how Larrañaga and Miami play basketball with Isaiah Wong and Jordan Miller attacking off the bounce and playing free and spaced on offense.
Wong and Miller both average over 15 points and UVA’s leading scorer, Jayden Gardner only scores 11.8 a night. Kihei Clark has to be the main operator of this offense in crunch time and that’s scary with his lack of size.
UVA will let almost any team in the country hang around, they only beat James Madison by five, and Miami is good enough to beat them especially at home.
Follow all Josh Yourish’s bets HERE
Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change