Hampton (1-0) at Norfolk State (2-1) – 7:00 PM EST
Tonight’s UTR Game of the Day takes us to the Tidewater region in Virginia – a pair of old MEAC rivals square off tonight in the Battle of the Bay where the Hampton Pirates (now in the Big South) pay a visit to the Norfolk State Spartans. Hampton opened their season with an 82-78 victory at George Washington. Davion Warren led the Pirates with 20 points, including 18 points in the second half. Hampton was also supposed to have a game at William and Mary two days later, but that game was canceled because of COVID-19.
Norfolk State opened their season with two wins on James Madison’s campus against the host Dukes and Radford on Thanksgiving weekend. In their most recent outing, the Spartans suffered an 80-66 loss at home against Old Dominion. Devante Carter has averaged 14 points a game through NSU’s first three games of the season.
OTHER NEWS, NOTES AND HIGHLIGHTED GAMES
-Tonight we will be recording the Hoops HD Report, so be on the lookout for that. I will also ATTEMPT to get this week’s Merit Rankings and Bracket Projections posted some time today. It is a very busy day in the Puppet Bunker, and the weekly Monday Bracket may not make it to press until Tuesday. But, it’s 2020, so there are no rules!!
-Villanova picked up a really nice win against Texas. I was actually impressed with both teams. Nova is a national title contender that looked like it by beating a ranked team on the road, and Texas is a legit top 25 team that looked like it by hanging with a national title contender.
-Kentucky has fallen to 1-3 after losing to a Georgia Tech team that came into the game 0-2 with two losses to (albeit good) UTR teams. Every year I say that you can’t read too much into Kentucky early in the season because they really don’t get going until about their tenth game. But yesterday they looked exceptionally bad. I still think they’ll come around and be a force by the end of the year, but they’ve got a long way to go to get there.
-Xavier is now 6-0 after their win at Cincinnati. This game has been a nearly unwatchable rock fight in recent years, but yesterday’s game actually had a flow to it, both teams played well, and it wasn’t until the final minute that Xavier got control and pulled ahead. And, just so everyone knows, Gold Star is better! #GoldStarIsBetter
-Oklahoma went on the road and handed TCU their first loss of the season. This was also the Big 12 opener for both teams, so a nice job for the Sooners opening things up with a road win.
-Congrats to Bellarmine who picked up their first ever win as a D1 program with a 84-63 win over Howard.
-WOFFORD AT RICHMOND. It doesn’t look like Wofford will be a SoCon frontrunner this year, but they do come into this game 2-0. For Richmond it’s their first game since their big win at Kentucky and they are trying to build on that.
-EASTERN WASHINGTON AT OREGON (buy game)