Small Conference Game(s) of the Day – December 8 and 9

The SCGD is back!  Apologies for a week or so of downtime, as a few things in the world outside of college hoops has prevented any entries.  But we are back again with a pair of games tonight and tomorrow night — games from the Lumberjack E-Tech Classic.  This of course brings up the question, “What the heck is the Lumberjack E-Tech Classic???”

Stephen F. Austin (the Lumberjacks) is hosting a four team, four game event today and tomorrow down in Nacogdoches, Texas.  The Lumberjacks will play the late game on both days, hosting James Madison at 9:00PM Eastern tonight and Towson at 9:00PM Saturday night.  The early games each night (6:30 PM) involve Sam Houston State, playing Towson tonight and James Madison tomorrow night.  Saturday’s double header will be televised regionally by Comcast Sportsnet.

Stephen F. Austin is off to a 6-2 start on the season, though their best win so far was at Marshall.  They suffered a 10 point loss at Texas and an 8 point loss at East Tennessee State.  However, they should be one of the top teams in the Southland Conference this season.  Their conference mate, Sam Houston State, is coming off a pretty bad loss to Liberty, but is 5-3 on the year with their other two losses being to Texas A&M and SMU.  However, any win picked up in this event will be their best of the season to date.

The two road teams for this event are James Madison and Towson.  JMU has struggled to a 2-6 start to the season, including an 81-49 drubbing by a fairly mediocre Valparaiso team.  Not much was expected from the Dukes this season, and so far they are living up to that lack of expectations.  Towson, on the other hand, is a solid 6-2 to date with their only losses coming to Villanova and Kansas, albeit both games being blowouts.  They have already scored a solid win over Temple and Pat Skerry’s team could do nothing but help their cause if they can sweep the two games in this weekend’s event against a pair of the top Southland teams.  After a quick trip home to play a non-D1 opponent after this event, Towson has an upcoming road trip to Oregon State and North Dakota State–two games that will go a long way into showing just how good this team is.