Middle Tennessee at Rice, 8:00 PM Eastern, BEIN Sports
The Under the Radar Game of the Day heads to Houston tonight as the Rice Owls will be playing host to the Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders in what may prove to be one of Middle’s toughest conference road tests all season. Although we feel that Middle Tennessee is clearly the team to beat in C-USA, Rice has already shown that they have enough talent to contend for a place near the top of the conference standings, and a home win tonight would not be a huge upset by any means. Middle Tennessee currently sits at 1-0 in conference play and 11-3 overall, with a solid KenPom rating of 61. The Blue Raiders opened conference play on Sunday with a win over UAB, led by a very impressive 34 point effort from Reggie Upshaw. If he is even close to that potent again tonight, a road victory will be there for the taking.
Rice has not won more than a dozen games in a season since 2012, but has a chance to pick up win number 12 tonight, entering play at 11-4 overall and 1-1 in league play. The Owls had five players in double figures in their win over Charlotte last time out, led by 25 from Marcus Evans and a double-double from Egor Koulechov. Spreading out the offense will be key against a team as talented as Middle Tennessee. If they can come anywhere close to the offensive output they had in their last game, this has a chance to be a very close and exciting game — if you can find BEIN Sports on your cable package to watch it.