Under the Radar Game of the Day for Thursday, January 8, 2015: Hofstra at College of Charleston

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Hofstra at College of Charleston, 7:30 PM Eastern, Local TV in Charleston, free streaming at caa.tv

The UTR Game of the Day heads to beautiful Charleston, South Carolina tonight for a Colonial Athletic Association matchup between the College of Charleston Cougars and the visiting Hofstra Pride.  College of Charleston, once a dominant force in the Southern Conference, has followed up a 14-18 initial campaign through the CAA last season with a 5-10 start to this year.  The Cougars were the focus of some ugly offseason news where a scandal led to the firing of head coach Doug Wojick and the hiring of Earl Grant late in the offseason.  Despite treading water early, starting the year 5-4, the Cougars are now on a six game losing streak including having dropped their first two conference games of the year.  All indications so far are that this will be a long season as Coach Grant attempts to rebuild the program.  A win tonight, however, could start to turn things around.

Heading into the season, the CAA appeared to us to be a two team race between Northeastern and William & Mary.  While the early non-conference season seemed to confirm that, Hoftsra slowly flew in not only under the national radar but even (one could say) under the “Under the Radar” crew’s radar.  However, we have now noticed the Pride and are definitely aware that we have a three team race in the CAA.  The Pride enter tonight’s game at 111-4 overall and 2-0 in early CAA play.  They have the highest BPI (74) and KenPom (83) ratings in the conference.  While none of the Pride’s wins have been exceptionally noteworthy (a home win over Stony Brook may be the best of the lot), the Pride have certainly learned how to win games and have momentum as we move deeper into the conference season.  With the entire CAA being down a bit this year (David and I discussed Delaware’s almost amazing fall from grace during this week’s podcast, below), this could be the perfect chance for the Pride to sneak in and steal the conference title.  Of course, to do so, the Pride must win conference games on the road — which is exactly their challenge tonight.