Under the Radar Game of the Day (and other Highlighted Games) – Monday, February 22: Bethune-Cookman at Stetson

Under the Radar Game of the Day: Bethune-Cookman at Stetson, 8:00 PM Eastern, espn3

With regular season play starting to wrap up in conferences this week, it is rare to see a pair of teams actually stepping out for a non-conference matchup.  However, that is exactly what is happening today when the Bethune-Cookman Wildcats will attempt to avoid the traffic heading out of Daytona (apparently some car race took place there yesterday) for the half hour trip down I-4 to DeLand to take on the Stetson Hatters.  This is the second time these two teams have played this season after they matched up in Las Vegas back on November 26 as part of the Las Vegas Invitational exempt event.  Stetson won that contest 83-70 and will be going for the season sweep tonight.

Bethune-Cookman enters play tonight with a record of 11-16 overall, but 8-5 in the MEAC has them a game up on Savannah State for the #4 seed in the conference tournament, which comes with a bye into the quarterfinal round.  The Wildcats have won 5 of their last 6 games.  They are led by Jordan Potts, a junior who has hit more 3’s (72) than 2’s (56) this season.  Potts led his team with 23 points when these two teams met back in November.  He will need to have another high scoring night, and be helped by teammates such as Mario Moody, if Bethune wants to pick up their first road win at Stetson since 1990 tonight.

Stetson made Under the Radar headlines back on February 1 with a huge road upset at Atlantic Sun leader North Florida.  Unfortunately for the Hatters, they have not won since that game and currently sit at 9-20 overall and 3-10 in conference play.  The Hatters are tied with South Carolina Upstate for the #7 seed in the A-Sun, and could be on their way to a last place finish with Florida Gulf Coast coming in later this week.  Stetson is ineligible for postseason play this season due to their APR scores, but will be permitted to participate in the conference tournament.  The Hatters are led by Brian Pegg who has 16 double-doubles on the season and freshman Derrick Newton, who scored 22 points in the win over UNF.  Newton is in fact just 10 points away from setting the school’s scoring record for a freshman, and has a great chance to do so tonight.

OTHER HIGHLIGHTED GAMES

-VIRGINIA AT MIAMI FL (ACC).  Miami is coming off an absolute thrashing against North Carolina, but they’re back at home and should play a lot better tonight.  Virginia is looking like they could get a #1 seed, and this is the kind of road win that would help their case.

-TEXAS AT KANSAS STATE (Big Twelve).  This isn’t the easiest road game in the world to win, but Texas has certainly won tougher road games than this, and if they want to be a protected seed then they should be expected to be able to beat non-tournament teams on the road.

-IOWA STATE AT WEST VIRGINIA (Big Twelve).  Yet another Big Twelve match-up between two likely protected seeds that are looking to add another high caliber win to their profiles.