Under the Radar Game of the Day – Saturday, January 16: Texas Southern at Jackson State

Under the Radar Game of the Day: Texas Southern at Jackson State, 6:30 PM, free streaming at jsutigers.com

It will be hard to top last night’s UTR Game of the Day as Monmouth picked up another huge road win at Iona in a very intense game that ended with an altercation from which suspensions are sure to be handed down — in other words, an intense rivalry game that helps make college basketball the amazing sport that it is (do you hear me Utah???).  Today, the UTR Game heads to Jackson, Mississippi for what may prove to be one of the more important regular season games in the SWAC this season, as the Jackson State Tigers host the Texas Southern Tigers.

As we have chronicled here at HOOPS HD, the SWAC had one of its best non-conference seasons in recent memory this year, picking up more true road wins against D1 teams than the league has since the early 90’s.  Jackson State helped contribute to those wins with a 16 point road victory at in-state rival Southern Miss.  The Tigers came close on a couple of other occasions as well, falling in overtime at Tennesee Tech and in double overtime at Louisiana Tech.  They are currently 8-9 overall and off to a 3-1 conference start.  The JSU Tigers are led by Paris Collins (20+ points seven times ths season), Chace Franklin (24 points last time out against Southern) and Raeford Worsham (4 double-doubles on the year).  If they can hold serve at home today, JSU will bring their overall record up to the .500 mark and move into sole possession of first place in the conference.

Standing between Jackson State and first place is Mike Davis’ Texas Southern Tigers.  Heading into conference play, just looking at Texas Southern’s 1-11 overall record would not have made one think they were going to be a contender.  However, a closer look reveals that their entire non-conference slate was played away from home (TSU’s home opener for the season was not until January 2 after an earlier non-conference home game had to be cancelled due to weather issues).  Texas Southern has represented the SWAC in the NCAA Tournament each of the last two years.  Now that they are playing SWAC competition and getting home games, we fully expected this team to begin winning games, and at 3-0 so far in league play, they have done exactly that.  Chris Thomas and Malcolm Riley are the senior leaders of this team, but keep an eye on freshman Derrick Griffin.  Griffin has only played 9 games so far this season, and has already pulled down five double-doubles (and just missed a sixth in a 20 point, 9 rebound effort against Syracuse).  A road win in Jackson today will certainly send a message to the rest of the SWAC that Mike Davis’ team’s non-conference record does not matter now that conference play has arrived.