Marshall at Chattanooga, 7:00 PM Eastern, socondigitalnetwork.com
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There are days when picking the Under the Radar Game of the Day feels likes pulling teeth, with a pile of games on the schedule that all seem to stink to high heaven. And then there are days like today where it seems that at least half a dozen games could easily qualify. Part 2 of this year’s Battle of the Boulevard between Belmont and Lipscomb is being played. Northeastern and Harvard are meeting in a battle between the best two teams in the city of Boston (yes, I am looking at you Boston College). Monmouth is visiting Wagner. The #TeamOfThePeople New Hampshire Wildcats are on the road at American. But, in the end, the choice for today’s game had to be Marshall, off to a solid start out of Conference USA, taking a trip down to Chattanooga, Tennessee to get some of the best fried chicken you will ever eat, at Champy’s (make that to play a game against the hometown Mocs).
Marshall enters tonight’s game at 5-2 on the season. After a 4-0 start, they lost at Ohio State, but then rebounded at home with a very impressive 10 point victory over an Ohio University team that we believe could end up in the at-large bid discussions. Unfortunately for the Thundering Herd, they gave back a lot of what they had gained in that win by following it up with a road loss at Eastern Kentucky. Head coach Dan D’Antoni’s team had all five starters in double figures in the Ohio win, led by Jon Elmore’s 28 points. Elmore had 19 more in the EKU loss, along with 7 assists, but only two other starters had double digits in that game. The Herd will need Elmore and his teammates to play better than that if they want to get the road win tonight. They will also need Elmore to fix his assist-to-turnover ratio, which has been very close to 1:1 over the team’s last four games. If the turnovers can be cut back, and the offense can be spread out a bit more, the Thundering Herd could win tonight and prove that they will be a factor in Conference USA this season.
Chattanooga enters tonight’s game at 6-2, and in need of quite a few more solid wins if they want to have a shot at an at-large bid this season. The Mocs have already won at Tennessee, and certainly were not disgraced in any way by losing at North Carolina. However, a disappointing loss on a neutral court to Arkansas State is a minor blemish on their resume and does not give them very many more strikes the rest of the way. Wins tonight against Marshall and on December 17 when they go visit Vanderbilt have almost become necessities if this team does not want to be in a position of having to win the SoCon’s automatic bid in March. The Mocs are a solid team, led by Greg Pryor, Tre’ McLean, Justin Tuoyo and Casey Jones. Each of those players, other than Jones who is still working his way back from a season-ending injury last year, has had at least one game with 20 or more points so far this season. The Mocs have enough talent and depth to win their league, and picking up a victory against a solid Marshall team tonight will help send the message that the Arkansas State game (played without Jones) was an just an aberration.