Tonight’s Small Conference Game of the Day comes from the Atlantic Sun conference where the league leading Mercer Bears will be facing their toughest conference test so far, on the road at Florida Gulf Coast (6:00 PM Eastern, ESPNU). Mercer enters tonight’s game as the clear favorite in the conference, sitting at 12-2 in league and 21-6 overall. Their RPI is at 68 and KenPom is at 85 — good enough for us to be projecting them as at least a 14 seed in the NCAA tournament. The defending conference tournament champions, FGCU, enter at 11-3 in conference and 17-10 overall, but with an RPI down at 155 and KenPom of 179, probably placing them into the 16 seed line should they advance to the Big Dance. A win by Gulf Coast tonight will tie things up at the top of the conference standings with only 3 games left to play, while a Mercer win would give them a 2 game lead and a sweep of the Eagles, all but locking up the #1 seed in the A-Sun tournament.
For even more information on our predictions for where these two teams, and pretty much every other team in contention for a league title in a single bid conference, could end up in the NCAAs, check out this week’s Under the Radar video podcast. In addition to going over these teams, David and I take an even closer look at the chaos happening in Baton Rouge with Southern University’s postseason eligibility, discuss the causes of madness that would make someone think the Big East will place seven teams into the NCAA tournament, and run down out Under the Radar Top Ten lists, with a particular focus on BYU’s current resume. All that and more!