Harvard at Bryant, 5:30 PM Eastern, free streaming at necfrontrow.com
The UTR Game of the Day slips out of conference play tonight as the Harvard Crimson travel to Smithfield, Rhode Island to battle the Northeast Conference co-leader, Bryant. Tonight’s game is the final non-conference contest for Harvard (1-0 in conference, 10-4 overall), as they get ready to head into the Ivy League regular season, which gets moving in earnest next weekend. Harvard entered the season as one of the top Under the Radar teams in the nation, but has failed to pick up a single non-conference win of note. As if that wasn’t bad enough, they lost games to Holy Cross, Arizona State and Boston College (which has been claimed to be an automatic disqualifier for any team searching for an at-large bid). The good news for the Crimson is that they are still by far the best team in the Ivy League and should not have much difficulty winning the regular season title and automatic bid that comes with it. If the Crimson prove to not be good enough to take the Ivy league regular season title, they will have suffered two or more bad losses in conference play that would clearly destroy any NCAA tournament hopes.
Bryant has leaped out to an early 5-1 start in conference play despite only being 8-7 overall. The Bulldogs are currently on a four game winning streak that includes a home win over St. Francis (PA), one of the other top teams in the NEC. A win at home over the Crimson tonight would clearly be the Bulldogs’ best win of the season so far and would serve notice to their conference that the 5-1 start in league play has not been a fluke. Keep an eye on Dan Garvin for Bryant tonight, who has scored in double digits in three of his last four games.