Long Beach State at Wichita State, 8:00 PM Eastern, Cox Sports/espn3
The Under the Radar Game of the Day tonight is also one of the better games, on paper at least, of the entire opening weekend of the college basketball season. Head coach Dan Monson’s Long Beach State 49ers will be heading to Wichita to take on Greg Marshall’s Shockers. Both teams are coming off of season-opening wins on Friday and have the chance to make an early statement tonight in a game between a pair of teams that may be good enough to contend for an at-large bid if they come up short in their conference tournaments. Long Beach is led by Noah Blackwell and Evan Payne. The 49ers almost always play one of the toughest non-conference schedules in the nation, and this year is no different as they will follow tonight’s game with trips to North Carolina, Louisville, UCLA and Washington, and will travel to Kansas and Texas later this year. Given that schedule, tonight’s game is actually one of their most winnable non-conference games of the season!
Wichita State may find it tougher to win the Missouri Valley Conference this season without Ron Baker and Fred VanVleet. The good news is that there are no significant seniors and there are several players that look ready to step up into starring roles, including Markis McDuffie, former Kansas transfer Conner Frankamp and a now healthy Landry Shamet. Although we are predicting Illinois State to challenge and possibly dethrone them, the Redbirds suffered a tough loss Friday evening at Murray State. Wichita can certainly send a message to Illinois State and the rest of the conference with a win over a very good Long Beach team tonight.