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Niagara at Monmouth, 7:00 PM Eastern, espn3
With only six games on the Division I slate tonight, choosing the UTR Game of the Day looks fairly simple. A look at the schedule shows that Valparaiso will be at Green Bay in a battle for the top spot in the Horizon League between two teams that may still have at-large big aspirations should they need one. However, instead of heading to Green Bay, we have chosen to go to West Long Branch, New Jersey for the Metro Atlantic contest between Niagara and Monmouth. And by heading to West Long Branch, I mean that literally. In honor of our colleague, Lee Delveccio, and his love of MAAC basketball, I will be in attendance tonight as the Hawks take on the visiting Purple Eagles.
Niagara enters tonight’s game as the second worst team in the MAAC behind only Marist. The Purple Eagles are 3-15 overall on the season, and 2-6 in conference play. They looked like they might be a surprise team back in November when they pulled off an early conference victory at St. Peter’s, but have only picked up a pair of home victories (Albany and Manhattan) since then. Their losses include a home loss to Penn last week and a pair of losses to Siena already as well. Tonight, the Purple Eagles will look to avenge a 66-50 home loss to Monmouth that occurred back on January 4. We will be keeping an eye on Emile Blackmon, who scored 21 points in his team’s last game, and Ramone Snowden, who has hit double-digits in scoring each of his last five times out.
The Hawks have had a better season than Niagara by far, sitting at 10-9 overall and 6-2 in conference play. They are in the middle of a stretch of three games in six days as they won at Penn in a non-conference tilt Wednesday night and will be traveling to Manhattan on Sunday. The Hawks most significant win of the season came back on December 7 when they defeated conference favorite Iona at home. They also played a very strong home game against Rutgers, falling by only one point. A win tonight would improve them to 7-2 in MAAC play and tie the Hawks for first place with Iona. We will be paying particular attention to Deon Jones and Justin Robinson, the top two scoring threats for Monmouth. If they play well there is no reason why the Hawks will not pick up the home victory and keep the pressure on Iona as we move towards the end of January.