Under the Radar Game of the Day: Valparaiso at Detroit, 1:00 PM Eastern, ASN/espn3
For the second time in three days, the Valparaiso Crusaders are our feature team in the UTR Game of the Day. Of course, with NFL football dominating the headlines today, there are only two games on the calendar that even qualified for consideration, and, with all due respect to UIC at Oakland, this one is clearly the most important. The Valparaiso Crusaders enter play today with a record of 12-3 overall and 2-0 in conference play. On Friday night, they faced what we thought would be their toughest conference game of the season — and proceeded to crush Oakland on the road, winning 84-67. This afternoon, the road trip to Michigan concludes as they head to Detroit to take on the Titans. Valpo was led in the Oakland win by Trevonn Walker’s 24 points and Alec Peters’ double-double (15 points and 11 boards). Vashil Fernandez added 12 rebounds of his own, just missing a double-double (9 points).
Detroit is currently 9-5 on the season, but off to a solid Horizon League start at 3-0, although all three games have come at home so far. In a strange quirk of the schedule, the Titans start Horizon League play with five straight home games, meaning that 9 of their last 13 games after that will all be on the road. Paris Bass is the key players to keep an eye on for the Titans. He has only played 7 games so far this season, yet scored well into double-digits in each of them, including a 28 point, 13 rebound effort last weekend against Cleveland State. With Bass, who was the conference Freshman of the Year last season, in the lineup and playing strong, the Titans are certainly capable of pulling off the upset today. However, if the Crusaders play anywhere close to the way they played Friday night, that may not be possible.