Florida Gulf Coast at Middle Tennessee, 7:30 PM Eastern, Stadium Facebook-Live page
For the third time already in the young season, head coach Kermit Davis’ Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders are being featured in our Under the Radar Game of the Day. Part of this is because his team is once again among the favorites in Conference USA, where they have won back-to-back conference tournament titles and advanced to the round of 32 each time. Even more importantly, Coach Davis has done what so many of these other Under the Radar programs fail to do — scheduled!! As a team from a non-power conference, it is somewhere between difficult and impossible to get a power conference team to schedule you on equal terms (home and home). So many schools therefore end up playing a ton of road “buy games” and get their home games against lesser competition. What coach Davis has done, and should be highly commended for, is schedule series with teams that are among the elites of the mid-major ranks. With games already against Murray State and Belmont, tonight the Blue Raiders play the front end of an in-season home-and-home with Atlantic Sun preseason favorite Florida Gulf Coast.
Middle enters today’s game at 3-1 on the season, including a solid road win at Murray State. They did fall at home last week to Belmont, 69-63, despite once again getting strong efforts from Giddy Potts and Nick King. Potts and King were both in double figures, including a game high 20 from King, in their most recent game — a road win over Tennessee State. Tonight’s game is important not only to give Blue Raider fans their team’s first home win over D1 competition, but also to avoid leaving a bad taste in the team’s mouth heading into a 12 day layoff before their next game, which will be the trip down to Fort Myers for the rematch with FGCU.
Florida Gulf Coast enters tonight’s game at 2-1, having beaten Illinois State at home and won at Siena. The Eagles suffered their lone loss last time out, at Bowling Green, 83-80. Brandon Goodwin and Christian Terrell were the Eagle’s top two scorers in that loss, though Zach Johnson was held to only 8 points after having 27 in the opener against Illinois State. If Johnson can step up and the rest of the team continues to perform, a road win would look very nice on Dunk City’s resume, and help make up for the Bowling Green loss. Unlike Middle Tennessee, FGCU actually has a slew games between tonight and their rematch December 2, hosting a round-robin event this weekend that will feature matchups with Denver, Navy and St Francis-Brooklyn, plus a game against non-D1 Webber International next Wednesday.