Under the Radar Game of the Day – Sunday, December 6: UC-Irvine at St Mary’s

Under the Radar Game of the Day: UC-Irvine at St. Mary’s, 7:00 PM Eastern, thew.tv

The UTR Game of the Day heads out to California today for a matchup between the team we are picking to win the Big West championship, UC-Irvine, and the only undefeated team in the West Coast Conference, St. Mary’s.  The UCI Anteaters enter today’s game with a record of 6-2, including a nice road win at Central Florida.  They had been a sleeper pick to make noise in the Wooden Legacy last week, but faltered in the quarterfinals against Boise State and, after easily beating Boston College, lost again in the Fifth Place Game to Evansville.  Of course, when you talk UC-Irvine, you have to talk about the seven and a half foot tall beast in the middle, Mamadou Ndiaye.  Ndiaye scored 19 points and grabbed 15 rebounds in the team’s last game, against Pacific, and is fully capable of posting numbers like that every time he takes the court.

The St. Mary’s Gaels have very quietly gone undefeated on the young season so far, sitting at 5-0.  Perhaps one of the key reasons for that is the fact that they have yet to lave the friendly confines of McKeon Pavillion in Moraga.  They do hold a solid win over Stanford, although we are not expecting much from the Cardinal this season.  Today’s game may prove to be their toughest challenge of the season so far, and with a trip to Cal being their only non-conference road test, one of their toughest of the season before conference play starts (though keep an eye on their final game of the season coming on March 1 when they host the Grand Canyon Antelopes).  The Gaels have a balanced scoring attack, having had five or more players score in double figures three times already this season.  If they can spread things out and negate Ndiaye’s inside presence on defense tonight, stretching the record to 6-0 could happen — and will get us to pay them a lot more attention moving forward.