NEWS AND NOTES
-It was a rather chalky day yesterday. Evansville hung in with Xavier for most of the game and Ball State made Purdue sweat a little bit, but there weren’t any results that were particularly surprising. The only exception was Oklahoma State going down at Charlotte on a last-second 3-point bank shot – which is at least noteworthy when you consider that the 49ers didn’t even qualify for the C-USA tournament last season.
-The Atlantic 10 is showing more signs of concern – while Saint Louis barely squeaked by Troy at home, La Salle lost at home to Lafayette by a point and Fordham had a close loss on the road at Houston Baptist. And as one astute reader on Twitter noted, the A-10 is now 0-3 this year against the Patriot League (with Bucknell winning at St. Bonaventure and American winning at George Mason).
-Cal State Northridge at Pepperdine was postponed yesterday due to the wild fires in that area. We hope that everyone being effected by that is able to stay safe.
HIGHLIGHTED GAMES
-GEORGE WASHINGTON AT VIRGINIA. This will end up looking very much like a buy game. GW is 0-2, which includes losses in home buy games. So this one could get ugly.
-HOFSTRA AT MARSHALL. Both teams are 1-0, and Marshall has a good deal of momentum built up after advancing to the Round of 32 a year ago.
-SOUTHERN MISS AT SMU. Both teams 1-0, and while Southern Miss still has a long way to go, they appear to be tremendously improved after the tire fire that they were a few years ago. Doc Sadler has done a very good job with that program.
-MIDDLE GEORGIA STATE (non-D1) AT SAVANNAH STATE. The Team of the People have their home opener today!!!!!
-FLORIDA STATE AT TULANE. Florida State is coming off a very impressive feel good win against Florida in their season opener. They may be tested a bit on the road today against a Tulane team that has a long way to go, but at the same time appears to be showing signs of improvement.
-VANDERBILT AT USC. Both teams come into this game having won their openers, but neither team faced a real test. I have a lot more questions than answers when it comes to these two, and it will be interesting to see what they do against each other.
-NORTH TEXAS AT HAWAII. Neither team has done anything to get all that excited about, but neither team has lost a game yet.
BUY GAMES (and others worth mentioning, but not highlighting)
-Army @ Duke
-Saint Francis Brooklyn @ Boston College
-East Tennessee State @ Creighton
-Florida Atlantic @ UCF – both teams are 1-0
-Drexel @ Rutgers
-Green Bay @ Iowa
-SELA @ Nebraska
-Fort Wayne @ Ohio State
-Stetson @ Missouri State – both teams unbeaten
-Hartford @ Mississippi State
-Oral Roberts @ TCU
-Sam Houston State @ Louisiana Tech – both teams are unbeaten
-UMKC @ UConn
-Cal Poly @ Arizona – both teams are 1-0
-FGCU @ Michigan State
-Nicholls @ Washington State – after playing Louisville tough don’t be surprised if Nicholls wins this one
-Appalachian State @ Alabama – both teams are 1-0
-Utah Valley @ Saint Mary’s