Wake Forest vs. Virginia Tech
Free Pick: Virginia Tech -5 -110 odds
Visit Touthouse.com for more expert college basketball picks from Matt Fargo

This is a great spot to play home teams in college basketball. A very favorable situation over the years is to back unranked home favorites when playing against ranked road underdogs. The logic is simple and it is usually an anti-public play as well because the mass majority will be backing the ranked team and in this case it is Wake Forest. Even better in this situation is the fact we are seeing reverse line movement which is always something to consider when looking at where the money is going. As of late Tuesday morning, nearly two-thirds of the action is on the Demon Deacons according to market reports yet this line is going the other way from an opening of -5 to its current number of -5.5 across the board. This is a rather big number to some so why wouldn’t they jump on the ranked team? There are a lot of reasons not to. Virginia Tech is no slouch as a win here over Wake Forest puts the Hokies into second place in the ACC and they have done so with little fanfare which I consider pretty unfair. We all know the ACC revolves around Duke and North Carolina but it is Virginia Tech that is the team that people should be talking about but aren’t. The Hokies are 7-3 in the conference and 20-4 overall and come into this game with an RPI of 49. It is that low because of a relatively soft non-conference schedule but that is far from their fault as the Hokies have played Iowa, Georgia, Penn St. and Seton Hall and all of those teams have fallen well below expectations coming into the season. Currently the Hokies are riding a four-game winning streak and they are a perfect 13-0 at home this season including a 5-0 record in the ACC with the average scoring differential in those five conference games being 7.4 ppg so they have been winning rather comfortably. This is the earliest that the Hokies have reached 20 wins in a season in school history so that should tell you something about the year they are having but no one is talking about. Wake Forest is obviously having a very good season as well but it is not at its best in road games where it is 2-3 in ACC action. One of those wins came in overtime while another came against disappointing North Carolina. Speaking of overtime, the Demon Deacons have won nine games since New Year’s Eve and of those four were in overtime including three at home so they have been good and maybe even fortunate, in winning some of those close games. Virginia Tech does have a lot of statistical edges in this matchup but a lot of that can be attributed to the fact that the schedule has been weaker than that of the Demon Deacons. One statistic that the schedule does not come into play with is free throw shooting, one of the biggest categories in college hoops. Over the last seven games, the Hokies are shooting 80.7 percent from the free throw line with is a great run. They entered this stretch shooting 68.1 percent from the foul line and they are currently shooting 71.8 percent from the charity stripe. Also over this seven-game stretch, they have shot at least 80 percent from the line in five of those games. Wake Forest is just 5-18 ATS in its last 23 games in the second half of the season against teams with a winning percentage of .800 or better while the Hokies are 11-3 ATS in their last 14 games coming off a home conference win. 3* Virginia Tech Hokies

If you enjoyed this article then you may be interested in:

1. North Carolina vs. Virginia Tech Odds, Pick & Prediction: February 4th 2010
2. Georgia Tech vs. Wake Forest: College Basketball Betting Odds & Picks: January 31st 2009
3. Maryland vs. Virginia Tech Betting Odds & Winning Picks: November 6th 2008
4. Virginia Tech vs. Cincinnati Free Orange Bowl Betting Pick from LT Profits
5. Orange Bowl: Virginia Tech vs. Cincinnati Betting Odds, Picks & Predictions
6. Virginia Tech vs. Miami Betting Odds & Expert Picks: November 13th 2008
7. Boston College vs. Virginia Tech Odds, Pick & Point Spread: October 10th 2009