5 starting points for your Wednesday basketball.

1. Duke opened a 1.5-point home dog to North Carolina.  How often are the Blue Devils an underdog at Cameron?  Only twice in the last decade, and both times to UNC.  Two years ago, the Heels beat Duke by 6 as a 4-point road favorite.  Back in 2005, Duke won 71-70 as a 1.5 point dog, which is the last time they beat UNC on this court.  And when we say that the Blue Devils have only been a home dog twice in the last decade, that’s as far back as we looked.  So it might be longer.

2. The most interesting individual piece of data discovered in researching this rivalry was the reminder of how dreadful UNC was in 2001-02, the second of the 3-year Matt Doherty era (or is it “Matt Doherty error”?).  Duke was a 28-point favorite over the Tar Heels in the regular season finale, and offshore sportsbooks had the Dookies at -26 and higher in the opening round of the ACC tournament.  Duke won without covering in both instances.  Carolina finished that season 8-20, while Duke was favored in every game but one (+1.5 in a road loss at eventual national champion Maryland).  The Blue Devils season came to a surprising halt when they  were upset as a double-digit favorite by Indiana in the NCAA tournament.  That was the spring that new IU coach Mike Davis looked like a budding genius.  While lacking in pointspread data, you may enjoy blowing a few minutes of your day on this recap of this rivalry between Duke and North Carolina.  ACC rivals Boston College and Florida State do not have a Wikipedia entry covering their history against one another.

3. How does double-digit underdog Syracuse come out tonight at #1 UConn?  The Orangemen have lost 4 straight road games, and in individual halves in those 4 games have allowed opponents to score 44, 47, 49, 50, 53, and 56 points.   Eric Devendorf turned the ball over 22 times in the 4 losses, with only 8 assists.  This veteran team offers little defensive resistance. Jim Boeheim, whose teams are always defensively sound when they make a tourney run, has to be tearing out what little hair he has left.

4. Robbie Hummel needs to get healthy for Purdue.  The Boilermakers are 0-3 without him, though they should be able to handle Penn State tonight.  If Hummel, PU’s primary scoring threat, gets healthy, look out for the Boilermakers. Matt Painter’s defense is holding opponents to less than 39% from the field.  That’s less than 39% of their 2-point attempts. Wow.

5.  The LA Clippers head home tonight to host a Knicks team on a back-to-back. Heading to Memphis last Friday night the Clippers had lost 7 straight, failing to cover every one of those games.  They had shot below 50% from the field in 48 of their 49 games.  Yet the Clippers somehow managed to sink 59% of their shots at lousy Memphis and the next night hit 57% of their attempts in Atlanta (Mike Bibby a late scratch) in winning those games by a combined 45 points.   No surprise that LA fell to earth in a 94-73 loss Monday night in Charlotte.  The Clippers 2-game 95-164 barrage from the field in Memphis and Atlanta is the very definition of the word “outlier”.

Hope Wednesday night treats you well.  Good luck and be careful.