Coastal Carolina at Georgia Southern, 7:00 PM Eastern, espn3
After taking the day off yesterday (my apologies HoopsHD fans – let’s just blame Griggs), the Under the Radar Game of the Day is heading to Statesboro, Georgia as the surprising Georgia Southern Eagles play host to the newest member of the Sun Belt Conference, Coastal Carolina. Heading into conference play, the Sun Belt looked like it would be a two team battle between Texas-Arlington and Arkansas State. Georgia Southern, however, has jumped out to a 6-0 conference record (13-6 overall) that includes a road sweep last week of the Louisiana schools. The Eagles have a roster full of underclassmen (watch out next year as well!) led by sophomores Tookie Brown and Ike Smith. Brown had 32 points on Saturday in a home win over Appalachian State while Smith added 25. Junior BJ Gladden was also a big factor, coming off the bench to lodge his first career double-double. Although the Eagles have yet to face Arlington or Arkansas State, they enter play today with a 2 game lead in the conference standings and will look to keep that edge at home tonight.
Head coach Cliff Ellis’ Coastal Carolina Chanticleers are off to a solid 4-2 start in their fist season of Sun Belt play (9-10 overall), part of a four-way tie for second place. Their only two league losses of the season so far came at two of the other teams that are part of the tie – Texas-Arlington and Georgia State. Despite losing by 20 points at Georgia State over the weekend, Colton Ray-St Cyr was very impressive with 20 points and 12 rebounds. Also keep an eye on the likes of Jaylen Shaw, Elijah Wilson and Demario Beck, all of whom can put up a big scoring number on any given night. The Chanticleers have enough options on the offensive end of the court to challenge for the Sun Belt title in their first season in this league after moving over from the Big South. If they can pick up the huge road win tonight, the message will be sent to the rest of the conference that this team is a real contender.
OTHER HIGHLIGHTED GAMES
-NC STATE AT DUKE (ACC). This is a Tobacco Road Rivalry, but it also appears to be a huge mismatch this year. Duke is struggling more than we expected this season for reasons that are entirely understandable, but they still appear to be a solid protected seed and should land there if they hold serve.
-TCU AT OKLAHOMA STATE (Big Twelve). Oklahoma State finally picked up a conference win over the weekend, but they still have a ton of work to do. TCU could really use a conference road win on their profile as well after two consecutive close losses.
-GONZAGA AT PORTLAND (West Coast). Gonzaga isn’t just unbeaten on the season, they’ve won 11 straight by double digits. The last game they did not win by double digits was against Arizona, whom they had a double digit lead over for most of the game. It is very unusual for both teams to play each other back-to-back in conference play, but this is a makeup of a game postponed a couple of weeks earlier due to Mother Nature.
-OKLAHOMA AT TEXAS (Big Twelve). The door is still barely open, but I can’t help but think that Oklahoma has improved a ton as the season has progressed, and there are enough winnable games and opportunities for them down the stretch to make a run at the bubble. Having said that, if they lose this game, I promise to not mention that anymore.