Under the Radar Game of the Day: Tuesday, December 23, 2014 — Florida Gulf Coast at Iona

Florida Gulf Coast at Iona, 2:00 PM Eastern, No TV

New Rochelle, New York is the final stop for the UTR Game of the Day before we take a three day break for the holiday.  Today, the Metro Atlantic’s best team so far, the Iona Gaels, will be hosting the Atlantic Sun’s top team, Florida Gulf Coast, in one of the top non-conference matchups between Under the Radar teams so far this season.  Unfortunately, the only way to watch the game is to subscribe to Iona’s pay-per-view webstreaming package.

Iona’s record so far only sits at 6-4 (1-1 in early MAAC play).  However, their KenPom rating is easily the best in their conference at 91.  The Gaels have lost to Wofford and Arkansas, both of which are respectable losses.  They also have lost a conference game to Monmouth and are coming off a non-conference loss at George Mason.  Those two losses alone have probably killed any chance for the Gaels to be in the at-large bid discussion should they need one, though if they can dominate their league play and pick up wins today and in their last two non-conference games at Drexel and UMass, they may still be good enough to be on the bubble.  A.J. English and David Laury are the two players to keep an eye on for the Gaels.

Florida Gulf Coast was one of our top UTR teams early this season, with huge home wins over Ohio U and UC-Santa Barbara.  While the Eagles are 9-2, they only enter today’s game with a 123 KenPom ratings, thanks in part to a bad home loss to Florida International.  The good news for FGCU is they will have the chances to make an at-large bid case over the next two weeks.  In addition to today’s  game at Iona, they still have contests at Xavier, at Pittsburgh and at UC-Santa Barbara left before league play starts.  Winning three of these four games and running through the A-Sun will probably have this team sitting fairly confident even if something crazy happens in their conference tournament.  Losing today would, however, not be a good start on that.  The two players to watch on Gulf Coast are their outstanding guard combo of Brett Comer and Bernard Thompson, both of whom most should remember from the Sweet 16 team two years ago.