Welcome to another edition of the SCGD! There are days when yours truly has to pull and scratch and dig to find a game to feature in this column Days when I have to sit there and pour over teams to find anything of note to discuss about them. Days when I almost (or sometimes do, though more likely that is because my day job intervened) give up and just say we will not have an SCGD. Then there are days like today — days when there are so many games to look at that I don’t know who to feature. Instead of making a choice today, I decided to just list them all!
Drexel at St. Joseph’s, 7:00 PM Eastern (Comcast Network Philadelphia/SNY): Drexel is the “sixth” member of the Philadelphia Big 5 — while they are located in Philly with Villanova, Temple, Penn, La Salle and St. Joe’s, they are not historically a true part of this rivalry and very rarely have a regular season game against all five other members. However, so far this year they have been the second best team in Philadelphia, behind Villanova, and can continue to build their resume with a win tonight.
Massachusetts at Ohio, 7:00 PM (no TV): UMass is a top 25 team and one of 13 remaining unbeatens. They have a legitimate road test tonight at Ohio U, a team off to a solid 7-02 start even though they have no true wins of note so far.
Winthrop at North Carolina Central, 7:00 PM (no TV): We always enjoy a game between the top teams in two conferences and that is what this game presents. Winthrop appears to be one of a few teams with a shot at winning the Big South while NC Central has already scored a road win at NC State and should be at the top of the MEAC standings all season.
Indiana State at St. Louis, 8:00 PM (FSN Midwest/Fox College Sports): Saint Louis has quietly put together a solid record and should be a contender in the A-10 all season long. Indiana State made some noise with a win earlier this season at Notre Dame, but may have given all that goodwill back with a loss to a bad Tulsa team. A win tonight should get them back into the MVC at-large picture though.
Southern Miss at Western Kentucky, 8:00 PM (HSSN/espn3): Southern Miss can continue to build their resume that only has a single loss at Louisville on it to date (albeit a complete blowout loss). The best thing that can be said about WKU so far is that they did not get beaten as badly by Louisville, though it was still pretty much a blowout.
Open Bible at Abilene Christian, 7:00 PM (no TV): This final game may be a shock to be appearing with the rest, but if a choice had to be made, the SCGD may very well have selected this one. There are times during a season that a team plays 3 games in 3 days — normally it is during an in-season tournament like the Maui Invitational or in conference tournament play. Open Bible, a startup athletic program, is playing 3 games in 3 days this week against transitional D1 schools. They played at Incarnate Word Monday and Tuesday, losing both games handily, and today travel to Abilene Christian for their third straight game. Abilene is playing its second game in 2 days as well, having beaten Bacone last night. Both Incarante Word and Abilene Christian are in their first year of transition from D2 to D1 this season.