Florida A&M (6-12, 4-3) at Norfolk State (9-11, 5-0) – 7:00 PM (ESPNU)
Tonight’s UTR Game of the Day takes us to Norfolk, Virginia where the hometown Spartans of Norfolk State will host the Florida A&M Rattlers in Monday Night MEACtion. Florida A&M started the season 0-9 thanks to their annual slate of buy games, but finished their nonconference season with a flourish thanks to wins at Seattle and at Iowa State. The Rattlers returned to earth with conference-opening losses at NC Central and NC A&T, but have since won four out of five to get above .500 in conference play. Rod Melton leads FAMU with 13.0 points a game; MJ Randolph also averages 12.6 points a game as well.
Norfolk State also started out 0-9 in nonconference play before finally getting a win against Bowling Green in the opening round of the Battle of the Boardwalk in Atlantic City. The Spartans have won their first five conference games – the most recent of which have come in their current 3-game homestand with wins against Maryland-Eastern Shore and South Carolina State. Three Spartans average in double figures and are led by Jermaine Bishop (14.0 PPG).
OTHER NEWS, NOTES, AND GAMES
-Stanford fell on the road to Cal, which is a pretty damaging loss, but other than that yesterday was a very chalky day. Ohio State ended their losing streak with a road win at Northwestern, Tulsa remains in first place in the American with their road win at UConn, and Maryland got a nice road win at Indiana in a game that seesawed back and forth.
-NORTH CAROLINA AT NC STATE. NC State is hovering around the bubble and can’t afford home losses to teams that are way outside the bubble, especially when you consider that they’re coming off a loss to Georgia Tech, who is ineligible, but wouldn’t be inside the bubble if they were eligible.
-WISCONSIN AT IOWA (Big Ten). Iowa looks like they’re solidly in the top half of the bracket right now and will remain there if they can continue to hold serve. Wisconsin has been playing better on a more consistent basis, but they were blown out at Purdue in their last game and are looking to bounce back. A win like this on the road is not easy, though.
-KANSAS AT OKLAHOMA STATE (Big 12). Kansas is still dealing with the suspensions, but this is a road game that they should be able to win and they are still on a path to end up as a #1 seed.