Monmouth at Rider, 7:00 PM Eastern, maac.tv
Chaos reigned supreme on Saturday when six of the Top Ten teams in the nation all lost games, four of them to unranked teams and the other two in complete blowouts. However, the chaos was not restricted to the top teams in the nation. Multiple conference leaders among the “Under the Radar” schools fell including Middle Tennessee, Valparaiso, Akron, Illinois State, Mount St Mary’s, Sam Houston State, UC-Davis and North Dakota State. One notable team that did not suffer an upset loss was the leaders in the MAAC, the Monmouth Hawks. Monmouth enters play today at 19-5 overall and 11-2 in conference play. Their RPI currently sits at 50 overall, high enough to get briefly mentioned among at-large bid talk, but without a strong enough of an overall profile for that conversation to be too serious. One of the main issues with their profile is a pair of upset losses in conference play back at the end of December and beginning of January, when they lost at St Peter’s and at home to Rider. On Friday, the Hawks avenged the St. Peter’s loss with a 71-70 overtime win behind 29 points from Justin Robinson, the school’s all-time leading scorer. Tonight, they will be traveling to the Trenton area to attempt to avenge the Rider loss in our Under the Radar Game of the Day.
Rider, despite a 13-11 overall record and a 6-7 conference mark, has proven over the past two seasons that they are capable of playing with and even beating Monmouth. Last year, the Broncs lost at home by only one point in this same matchup. Back on December 31, the Broncs won by 3 in overtime in West Long Branch. Stevie Jordan led his team with 22 points in that win while Kahlil Thomas had a double-double with 17 points and 13 rebounds. Xavier Lundy almost made it two players with double-doubles as he pulled down 13 rebounds and scored 9 points. In fact, the Broncs dominated the rebounding margin in that game. If they can do so today as well, they have a real shot at pulling off the season series sweep. A win could also help move Rider closer to the 4th or 5th seed in the conference tournament and a potential semifinal matchup with Monmouth once they get there. That is certainly a conference tournament matchup that the Hawks will not want to see in Albany this March.