NEWS AND NOTES
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HIGHLIGHTED GAMES
-AUBURN VS DAVIDSON (Veterans Classic, Annapolis MD). Auburn is coming off a Final Four season, and big things are expected of Davidson this year as they return a lot of talent from last year’s team. It’s Davidson’s first game, and Auburn’s first challenge.
-COLORADO STATE AT DUKE. Both teams come in 1-0, but Duke’s win against Kansas was the slightly more impressive win.
-NORTH CAROLINA AT UNC WILMINGTON. Both teams won their opener, but UNC clearly looks like the superior team and shouldn’t have too much trouble.
-NORTH TEXAS AT VCU. This is a buy game, but I like this UNT team and think that they may be able to stick with VCU for a while. They appear to be overmatched and they’re on the road, but this should be more competitive than most buy games.
-LOYOLA CHICAGO AT FURMAN. Both teams are 1-0. Furman won this one last year before going on to Villanova and beating them as well. You may recall they exploded onto the scene with back to back road wins against teams that were in the previous year’s Final Four.
-AKRON AT WEST VIRGINIA. This is the season opener for the Mountaineers, who are once again healthy and who did look pretty good in a charity game against Duquesne. Akron won their first game, but they’ll face a much bigger test tonight.
-VERMONT AT SAINT BONAVENTURE. A lot of us at Hoops HD are really big on this Vermont team. If they’re as good as some of us seem to think they are, then this should be a winnable road game for them.
-BOWLING GREEN AT LSU. Bowling Green is the preseason favorite to win the MAC. They’re probably overmatched tonight, but they’ve got a chance to make an early splash on the national scene.
-HARVARD AT NORTHEASTERN (Bean Pot). Both teams won their opener, and while Harvard looks to be the better team, playing on the road against a rival will be a lot tougher than playing at home against MIT. We should learn a little something about the Crimson tonight.
-NORTHERN KENTUCKY AT MISSOURI. This is a buy game, but since NKU is one of the better teams in the Horizon League we’ll go ahead and highlight it. Both teams come into this 1-0, and while Mizzou should win, they better not overlook the Norse.
-UNC GREENSBORO AT KANSAS. This may look like a mismatch, and perhaps it is, but UNCG is a top 50 caliber team that just missed the NCAA Tournament a year ago, and may be good enough to land inside the bubble this year. Winning at Kansas is probably over their heads, but it will be interesting to see what they can do against one of the best teams in the country.
-WEBER STATE AT UTAH STATE. Utah State escaped their season opener against Montana State. They face their Beehive State rivals tonight.
-ILLINOIS AT GRAND CANYON. Some people are really big on Illinois. Quite frankly, I’m not seeing it, and the fact that they needed overtime to get by Nicholls in their opener didn’t help my opinion of them much. At least they won, though. Grand Canyon couldn’t get past a div2 team in their opener. Still, it winning at GCU is never easy.
-WASHINGTON VS BAYLOR (Armed Forces Classic, Anchorage AK). This is an early season neutral floor game between two teams that look like they could be NCAA Tournament teams. It should be a fun one.
-ARIZONA STATE VS COLORADO (Not Pac 12, Shanghai China). I guess the Pac 12 couldn’t find a team to go to China for their annual early season game, so they just decided to send two Pac 12 teams. In case you’re wondering, this will not count in the conference standings. But, it is an important game. We feel that both are contenders to make the NCAA Tournament.
-OAKLAND VS DELAWARE (Sunshine Slam, Kissimmee FL). Both teams 1-0
-UTSA VS SOUTHERN ILLINOIS (Sunshine Slam, Kissimmee FL). Could be a fairly competitive UTR game
BUY GAMES
-Eastern Kentucky @ Kentucky – both teams 1-0
-UIC @ Memphis – both teams 1-0
-Siena @ Xavier – both teams 1-0
-Sacred Heart @ UConn
-Longwood @ George Mason – both teams 1-0
-Radford @ Liberty
-Florida Atlantic @ Miami FL
-Coppin State @ Virginia Tech
-Arkansas State @ Ole Miss
-Eastern Illinois @ Wisconsin
-Fairleigh Dickinson @ DePaul – both teams unbeaten
-Sam Houston State @ Mississippi State – both teams 1-0
-Merrimack @ Northwestern
-Mississippi Valley State @ Utah
-Portland @ USC – both teams 1-0