Check out David Grigg’s Rambling and preview of the rest of today’s action HERE.
Rider at Iona, 7:00 PM Eastern, No TV
The Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference runs a full double round robin conference regular season. With 11 members, this means that 20 conference games need to be played by each team. As a result, the MAAC has designated the second week of December as its first week of conference play. By the end of this week, every team in the league will be two games into their conference slate before heading back to finish their last few non-conference games. By the time we reach January, conference play will be in full swing the rest of the season.
Tonight’s UTR Game of the Day heads to the MAAC as the Rider Broncs travel to New Rochelle, NY to battle the Iona Gaels. Iona was our preseason pick to win the MAAC, but opened conference play Sunday in West Long Branch, NJ with a loss to Monmouth. The Gaels, who do have a win at Wake Forest and losses to Wofford and Arkansas, need to rebound from that loss tonight. Falling to 0-2 in conference play before January could be a huge hole for them to try to dig out of. The Gaels also need to make sure they do not look past tonight’s game. They still have five non-conference games remaining including a home game against a very good Florida Gulf Coast team and a trip to UMass.
The team that will try to knock the Gaels to 0-2 tonight is the Rider Broncs. Kevin Baggett’s team enters tonight’s game with a record of 4-5, including a win Sunday over conference rival Siena. While the Broncs do have five losses, three of them are certainly understandable — at Kansas and during the Orlando Classic to Michigan State and Georgia Tech. A win today will send notice to the rest of the conference that the Broncs will be a legitimate contender throughout the season.