College of Charleston vs Sam Houston State, 9:30 PM Eastern, flohoops.com
It is Turkey Day, which means time with close friends and family, lots of great food and drink, and lots of college basketball to watch! The Battle 4 Atlantis continues today, while the Advocare, Wooden Legacy, NIT Season Tip-Off, Las Vegas Invitational and both brackets of the PK 80 get started! As if that was not enough, today is also consolation semifinal day at the final ever Great Alaska Shootout, an event that is coming to an end after 40 years of some of the best basketball that the state of Alaska has ever produced.
The first consolation semifinal tonight features College of Charleston, a surprising 73-68 loser to Cal Poly yesterday afternoon, taking on Sam Houston State, a team that fell to Central Michigan 71-60. Charleston has been somewhat disappointing so far this year after being one of the preseason favorites to win the Colonial. The Cougars needed overtime to beat Siena at home and got beaten badly on the road by Wichita State. They do have a solid road win at Charlotte, but yesterday’s loss to a Cal Poly team that was picked to be in the middle of the Big West at best, was a shock. The one bright spot was the performance of Joe Chealey, who had a double-double with 26 points and 10 assists.
The Bearkats of Sam Houston State are 2-2 on the season, but both wins were against non-Division I foes. In addition to yesterday’s CMU loss, they also fell at Idaho by 9 points. Christopher Galbreath scored 12 pints yesterday, but will need to be closer to the 20 he had against Idaho if this team wants to avoid winding up in the 7th place game on Saturday. One interesting stat to look at is that Sam Houston’s point guard also had 10 assist in their quarterfinal game, as John Dewey scored 8 points to go with his 10 dimes.