Northern Colorado (10-6, 4-1 Big Sky) at Montana State (7-8, 4-1 Big Sky) – 9:00 PM EST (WatchBigSky.com)
Tonight’s game takes us to Bozeman, Montana where the Bobcats of Montana State will play host to the Front Range Champion* Northern Colorado Bears. Montana State has won 6 out of their last 8 games that includes a non-conference road win at Washington State. Their only blemish in Big Sky play is a loss at Northern Arizona, but this will be their first game against a top-4 team in the league. They have a backcourt of Tyler Hall (18.8 PPG) and Harald Frey (15.3 PPG) to lead the way.
Northern Colorado started off Big Sky play themselves with a 4-0 start to Big Sky play. However, they fell back into a first-place tie after a home loss to Montana on Saturday (which also puts the Grizzlies a half-game back of Montana State, Northern Colorado and Weber State). Jordan Davis is a candidate for Big Sky Player of the Year – he averages 24.8 PPG, 5.5 RPG and 4.7 APG for the Bears.
OTHER HIGHLIGHTED GAMES
-NEBRASKA AT INDIANA (Big Ten). Nebraska needs road wins if they want to be taken seriously. As of now, they really don’t have them other than the one at Clemson. They’ve come close, and they’ll have other opportunities, but the sooner they get a big road win like this on their resume, the sooner we can consider them a solid team that’ll land in the top half of the bracket.
-SYRACUSE AT DUKE (ACC). Syracuse lost to Georgia Tech over the weekend, so they’ll probably win tonight. Well, probably not, but they have a tendency to do what’s hard and then have a hard time doing what should be easy. Duke is still solidly on pace to get a #1 seed.
-FLORIDA STATE AT PITTSBURGH (ACC). Florida State is coming off a rather heartbreaking loss, and their resume is still looking a little flimsy. This would actually be one of their better wins of the year if they’re able to pull it off.
-WISCONSIN AT MARYLAND (Big Ten). This is a good match-up between two probable tournament teams, and will serve as a resume builder for whoever pulls out the win. Maryland has really kicked things into gear, and Wisky has struggled on the road lately.
-TEXAS AT KANSAS (Big 12). Texas is another very schizophrenic team. They’ve beaten North Carolina and lost to Radford. Still, I think their good outweighs their bad, but this would be their third loss in a row unless they pull off a huge upset. Kansas is still trying to adjust to life after being hit hard by the injury bug.