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Eastern Washington at Sacramento State, 10:00 PM Eastern, free streaming at bigskyconf.com
The UTR Game of the Day heads to Sacramento, California tonight as first place is on the line in the Big Sky Conference. The Eastern Washington Eagles enter tonight’s game at 13-4 overall and 4-0 in conference play. They have the top RPI, BPI and KenPom ratings in the conference, with the RPI sitting at a very solid 55. Their most notable win, of course, was back in November at Indiana. The Eagles’ four losses have all been respectable as well: at SMU, at Washington, at Cal and at Sam Houston State. While even winning out might not be enough for the Eagles to be in any serious at-large bid conversations should they slip in in the Big Sky tournament, a solid seed for an Under the Radar team, possibly as high as the 13 line, may be within their grasps. And we should not forget that winning the Big Sky regular season title will give the Eagles the added advantage of getting to host the conference tournament, and thus getting the best shot at winning the automatic bid.
Tonight’s game for the Eagles is at Sacramento State, and may be their toughest in-conference road game of the year (especially with traditional Big Sky powers Montana and Weber State both having down seasons). At 10-6, the Hornets are the only other Big Sky team with a record more than one game over the .500 mark. They are 4-1 in conference play so far, having dropped a game at Northern Colorado last weekend. While the Hornets do not have any truly notable wins, they have been playing well so far in Big Sky play and were among our preseason favorites in this conference. Even if the Hornets cannot stay close to Eastern Washington in the conference race this season, they should have a very good chance at a winning record, something they have never done at the Division I level (15-15 in 2005-06 was their best to date). It may also get them consideration for a postseason berth in the CBI or CIT, which would be the program’s first ever D1 postseason tournament. An upset win over Eastern Washington tonight would go a long way towards just such a finish.