Under the Radar Game of the Day: Morgan State at Loyola Marymount

Morgan State at Loyola Marymount, 8:00 PM Eastern, thew.tv

For Jon Teitel’s interview with Ben Byrd about Bernard King, CLICK HERE.

The calm before the storm.  After Christmas Eve off and only the final round of the Diamond Head Classic yesterday, Boxing Day today brings us one Division I contest before a ton of teams start regular season conference play tomorrow and over the next week.  The one and only game on the calendar is Morgan State, taking a holiday trip to the west coast (they play again Thursday at Cal State Northridge), to take on Loyola Marymount.  Morgan State enters tonight’s game at 3-8 on the season, with home wins over Campbell, Manhattan and non-D1 Wilmington.  Although only two wins against D1 foes sounds rough, the Bears, along with North Carolina Central, are one of only two MEAC teams to have more than one such victory so far this year.  Keep an eye on junior Phillip Carr for the Bears, as he has scored in double figures every game this season and has picked up four double-doubles.

Loyola Marymount enters play tonight with a record of 6-4.  None of the Lions’ losses have been particularly bad, as they all fall within the top 100 in KenPom ratings (Nevada, UConn, Boise State and Texas-Arlington).  In addition, LMU picked up a nice road win at Colorado State, one of the tougher venues to win at in the Mountain West conference.  Brandon Brown scored 22 points in that win, while Stefan Jovanovic added 21.  If the two of them can continue to dominate opponents, the Lions have a great shot at not only winning tonight, but being very successful when conference play starts later this week.