Under the Radar Game of the Day – Monday, November 23: Weber State vs Central Michigan

Under the Radar Game of the Day: Weber State vs Central Michigan, 8:30 PM Eastern, free streaming here

Thanksgiving Week.  The week for family, turkey, football, and in-season college basketball tournaments.  There will be more than enough hoops this week to satisfy even the most die-hard fans, including the Maui Invitational, Advocare Invitational, Wooden Legacy, Battle 4 Atlantis, Cancun Challenge, Legends Classic, and CBE Hall of Fame Classic, just to name a few.  One tournament that does not get a ton of attention, other than in the Under the Radar world, is the Gulf Coast Showcase, presented by the folks at BD Global Sports (who will also be bringing us the new postseason Vegas 16 event starting this year).  The main reason why the Gulf Coast Showcase gets so little attention is that it is an event specifically designed for 8 teams that are considered “mid-majors.”  The event (played in Fort Myers, Florida) kicks off today with the four quarterfinals as follows (all times Eastern):

12:00 PM – Milwaukee vs Murray State
2:30 PM – Duquesne vs Pepperdine
6:00 PM – Drake vs Western Kentucky
8:30 PM – Weber State vs Central Michigan

Although any of the four games could be a candidate for UTR Game of the Day, especially with Murray State being among the top teams in the Ohio Valley Conference, and Pepperdine,  Drake and Western Kentucky all being dark horse candidates in their conferences, it is the final game of the night that we are focusing in on.

Weber State enters today’s game at only 1-2 on the season, with their lone victory coming over one of our favorite non-D1 schools, Antelope Valley.  However, neither loss was particularly alarming (Utah State and at South Dakota State), so there is no reason to be too concerned yet that the Wildcats will repeat last season’s disappointing 13-17 overall and 8-10 Big Sky mark.  Weber State was the HOOPS HD preseason pick to win the conference, led by Joel Bolomboy down low and Jeremy Senglin in the backcourt.  Bolomboy is especially worth keeping an eye on as he has posted a double-double in all three of his team’s games so far this season.

Central Michigan was also the HOOPS HD preseason pick to win their conference, the Mid-American.  The Chippewas are 2-0 on the season having struggled to beat Jacksonville State at home then getting by non-D1 Alma by 15 points.  The biggest knock on this year’s CMU team is a very weak non-conference schedule.  Playing such a schedule requires a team to make up for it by winning pretty much every opportunity they get, and this tournament will be a nice feather in their caps if they can take home the trophy.  To do so, however, they will need to play a lot better than they did in their first two games of the year.  John Simons, Rayshawn Simmons and Braylon Rayson will all need to excel as they are three key returning players from last year’s MAC West Division champions.  One player that will not be available today is star point guard Chris Fowler.  Fowler had not played yet this season and remains listed as day-to-day with an injury.