Canisius (4-2, 4-2 D1) vs. Hofstra (5-3, 4-3 D1) – approx. 2:00 PM (CUSA.tv)
Today’s UTR Game of the Day takes place in Florida Atlantic’s arena as part of the Boca Raton Beach Classic (Naismith Bracket). Canisius started off the season slow with losses at Brown and Albany, but have since rebounded with 4 straight wins that include a win over St. Bonaventure in the Big 4 Classic. They also beat Mercer 76-66 to advance to today’s championship game. Malik Johnson leads Canisius with 14.8 points a game and 5.8 rebounds a game.
Hofstra has been all over the place to start the season – they lost at home to San Jose State to open their season, but they have gone 3-1 on a road trip that started with an 88-78 win at UCLA. They beat Holy Cross 91-69 to advance to today’s championship game of the Naismith Bracket. Eli Pemberton leads the Pride with 17.0 points a game and 5.5 rebounds a game.
OTHER NEWS, NOTES, AND GAMES
-After a solid week and a half of constant action and surprises, yesterday was rather quiet and chalky. Arizona beat Wake Forest without too much trouble (although Wake did look good in spurts), Maryland beat Marquette to win the Orlando Invitational without any much trouble (Marquette did not look good at all), Villanova beat La Salle at home, West Virginia had to sweat against a good Rhode Island team but came up with the win, and Vermont again tripped over their own feet and lost rather decisively at Yale.
-Temple is better than we thought, and Davidson is worse. Temple blew them off the floor yesterday to improve to 6-1 on the season with their only loss being a close one to Maryland. Davidson is just 3-5, and hasn’t looked good in any of those eight games.
-Providence was able to avoid yet another damaging loss when they held on to beat Pepperdine in the Wooden Legacy. Pepperdine gave a fantastic effort all throughout this event in nearly beating Arizona in their first game and taking Providence to the wall yesterday. You kind of hate that they have nothing on their resume to reflect that, and furthermore are short handed due to injuries.
-FURMAN AT SOUTH FLORIDA. Furman can get to 8-1 on the year and pick up their 4th true road win of the season.
-CLEMSON AT MINNESOTA (Big Ten/ACC Challenge). Clemson has played decently well this season, but they still have some work to do. This is their first true road game of the season, and it’s winnable, but Minney is also probably better than their 3-4 record indicates.
-SOUTH DAKOTA AT WASHINGTON. This is a buy game, but it’s one of the better teams in the Summit League, so we will go ahead and highlight it
-Arlington Baptist (nondiv1) @ SFA – buy game
-Florida A&M @ Kansas State – buy game