Under the Radar Game of the Day – Sunday, February 15, 2015: VMI at The Citadel

VMI at The Citadel, 5:30 PM Eastern, American Sports Network

With the regular season entering its stretch drive, we here at Hoops HD will be paying attention not only to the battles for the regular season championships in the Under the Radar conferences, but also the battles for conference tournament byes and even (in those conferences that everyone does not make the field) conference tournament qualification.  Today’s UTR Game of the Day turns to the battle for sixth place in the Southern Conference, which comes with the conference’s final bye past the first round and directly into the quarterfinals.  Entering play today, one game separates sixth place from 10th, with VMI, Samford, UNC-Greensboro, The Citadel and Furman all in the battle.

VMI enters today’s game in Charleston, South Carolina at 5-9 in conference play and 9-16 overall.  The Keydets have been somewhat disappointing in their first year back in the Southern after spending 11 seasons in the Big South, especially after registering 22 victories last year.  The biggest difference from last season to this for VMI has been the scoring.  While they are still one of the fastest teams in college basketball (in fact entering play today they are ranked #1 in adjusted tempo by KenPom), their offensive efficiency has dropped from a respectable 90th last season too a very poor 307th this year.  Back on February 3 they were actually held to only 23 points in the first half at home against UNC-Greensboro, which would be inexcusable for the slowest team in the country, let alone the fastest.  However, the Keydets do have a shot to at least finish in the top 6 if they can turn things around in their final four regular season games, starting this evening.

The Citadel (4-9 in conference, 9-15 overall) enters today’s game fresh off of a road win at Samford which snapped a six game losing streak.  Prior to the Samford win, the Bulldogs’ last victory was one of the most shocking wins by anyone all season, when the defeated SoCon front-runner Wofford 69-66 back on January 15.  With an over 250 point difference in KenPom ratings for the two teams entering the game, it may be one of the craziest upsets we have seen in years.  In fact, it is The Citadel’s only win over a top 250 team all season.  The Bulldogs will need a few more such wins, including a huge run in the SoCon tournament if they are going to have a shot at getting off of “the list” this season.  “The list” that The Citadel is on is the group of five teams (along with St Francis-Brooklyn, Army, William & Mary and Northwestern) that have been members of Division I since it began in 1948 and never qualified for an NCAA tournament.  If this will be the year, it will likely need to start with a win tonight.