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Under The Radar Game of the Day: Friday, December 6th

Posted on December 6, 2019 by John Stalica

For last night’s Under The Radar weekly podcast – CLICK HERE

Ohio-Chillicothe at Taylor – 6:00 PM EST (Facebook Live)

Today’s UTR Game of the Day takes us to one of our favorite traditions – Taylor University is hosting the Hilltoppers of Ohio University-Chillicothe. Both teams participate in NAIA Division II. This is the 23rd edition of the Silent Night game that has become tradition for Taylor before final exams every December. There are a couple of very notable alumni in the NCAA coaching ranks that attended Taylor – Akron’s John Groce and Ohio State’s Chris Holtmann.

In short, the game opens up in complete silence until Taylor scores the 10th point of the game. At this point, the place erupts and fans storm the floor to celebrate. Per agreement of both teams, Taylor is charged with a timeout as this happens (and not a technical foul as would normally happen under such a scenario).

These are some highlights from last year:

Posted in CBB on TV, Daily Rundown, Under the Radar | Tagged Crossroads Conference, NAIA, Ohio University-Chillicothe, Silent Night, Taylor University, under the radar | Comments Off

Under the Radar: December 5th

Posted on December 5, 2019 by David Griggs

Tonight’s feature conference is the WAC, which has been kind of disappointing up to this point with New Mexico State dealing with injuries and GCU falling short of expectations, but Chicago State picked up their first road win since 2017, and New Mexico State should be dangerous once they’re healthy again. After that we run through the other 21 leagues and discuss the slump that Vermont is in, the solid play out of CUSA from teams like Louisiana Tech, how tight the race in the Colonial will likely be, the surprising season Coppin State has had so far, and how strong the SoCon and MAC continue to be. All that and more. And as always, we close with our UTR Top Ten.

And for all you radio lovers, below is an audio only version of the show….

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Under The Radar Game of the Day: Howard at Hampton (and other News, Notes, and Games)

Posted on December 5, 2019 by John Stalica

For Rocco Miller’s recap of Georgia Tech’s win against Nebraska – CLICK HERE

Howard (0-9) at Hampton (3-5, 0-5 D1) – 7:00 PM EST (Watch Live)

Tonight’s UTR Game of the Day reunites a former pair of rivals in the MEAC – Howard hits the road to take on the Hampton Pirates (home of former Bad Boy Rick Mahorn). While Hampton has moved on from the MEAC to the Big South recently, they are beginning a week in which they will take on Howard and Norfolk State back-to-back. Jermaine Marrow has averaged over 25 points a game through Hampton’s first eight games this season.

This is also a game that has been billed “The Battle for the Real HU” – the Bison come into tonight’s game looking for their first victory of the season. While they’ve lost both home games, including Washington Adventist (NAIA) and the rest of their games against div1 opponents have been road games (including 4 games in the round-robin Men Against Breast Cancer Classic with Notre Dame, Marshall, Toledo and Robert Morris), they will have home games against Appalachian State, Harvard and Penn coming up in December. Charles Williams is averaging 17.7 points a game for the Bison thus far.

OTHER NEWS NOTES AND GAMES

-We saw an extremely impressive, and somewhat surprising, showing from Purdue yesterday as they ran Virginia off the court in a 69-40 win. The Boilermakers have faced three straight ranked opponents and beaten two of them. I’d say that’s a good week.

-Ohio State’s showing at North Carolina probably topped that. They blew the Tarheels off of their home floor. UNC doesn’t lose too often, they lose at home even less, and they almost never get blown out at home. It was Ohio State’s first true road game, and I’d say they were up to the challenge.

-LMU actually led Colorado for most of the game. It wasn’t until the final minutes that the Buffs got the lead and got control. The 76-64 score doesn’t really indicate how close the game actually was. Still, Colorado gets the win and remains unbeaten at 7-0.

-DePaul trailed for most of the game against Texas Tech, but it was close all throughout. They hit a 3 with less than ten seconds to go to force overtime, and then made several big plays in OT to get the win. DePaul remains unbeaten on the season, and now has wins over Texas Tech, Iowa, and Minnesota. That has all the makings of a tournament caliber resume. After the game, the fans stormed the court, and even though Texas Tech wasn’t ranked, it was still very much justified!!

-Georgetown, despite all the off the court drama and the loss of two key players, went down to Oklahoma State and beat a very good team on the road. That is one of the more impressive performances of the week just when you factor in what Georgetown has gone through and the caliber of the players that left the team.

-California Baptist knocked off UC Riverside to capture this year’s Battle of Riverside!!!!

-OKLAHOMA AT NORTH TEXAS. Coming into the year, I thought North Texas would be a lot better than what they are. Their 3-5 start to the season is kind of a disappointment. Still, the Sooners aren’t going to want to just completely overlook them. It’s their first true road game of the season, and it’s perhaps the most winnable true road game that they have on the schedule.

-FURMAN AT AUBURN. I’m big on this Furman team, although they are coming off a loss to a South Florida team that you would have expected them to beat even though they were on the road. They’ve got a much taller order tonight against 14th ranked Auburn on the road, but it’s the kind of game that if they were somehow able to win then it could put them in a situation to be inside the bubble come March and not need to win the conference tournament in order to get in.

-LA Tech @ Mississippi State – buy game, although LA Tech is off to a decent 5-2 start
-Central Arkansas @ Wichita State – buy game
-Northern Illinois @ Saint Mary’s

Posted in CBB on TV, Daily Rundown, Under the Radar | Tagged Battle for the Real HU, Big South, Hampton, Howard, MEAC, under the radar | Comments Off

Behind Devoe, Georgia Tech pulls away from Nebraska

Posted on December 4, 2019 by Rocco Miller

Michael Devoe scored a game-high 26 points to lead Georgia Tech to a 73-56 victory over Nebraska on Wednesday night.

The Yellow Jackets (4-2) pulled away from the Cornhuskers over the final 14 minutes to secure a win in the B1G-ACC Challenge. Devoe converted a three-pointer and a 2nd chance layup to give Georgia Tech the breathing room it needed to gain separation against Nebraska (4-4).

Haanif Cheatham led the Huskers in scoring with 14 points. Jervay Green and Cam Mack each scored 11 points for Nebraska.
The Huskers are learning to adjust to life under Head Coach Fred Hoiberg. Under Hoiberg, Nebraska brought in 11 newcomers this season. After a 3rd Place finish in the Cayman Islands Invitational, hopes are high that this team will continue to improve. In addition, Coach Hoiberg received high praise from Georgia Tech Head Coach Josh Pastner during the Postgame Press Conference, when Pastner eluded to Hoiberg being one of the best coaches in the nation.

The Huskers came out determined to prove they were here for a road victory. They held a few different leads during the first half, but ultimately too many turnovers proved to be costly. Hoiberg gave credit to James Banks III for clogging the middle and the rest of the Georgia Tech defense applied energetic ball pressure to get Nebraska out of rhythm.

Banks III swayed the game even more toward Georgia Tech on a monster block on Yvon Ouedraogo’s fast-break attempt.
The fans inside McCamish Pavilion were mostly quiet in the 1st Half, but the block brought the fans to their feet Later in the 2nd Half, Nebraska fans tried to spark a comeback with chants of “Defense,” but Tech fans came over the top with much louder “Offense” chants. It was impressive, and something I hadn’t witnessed.

The Yellow Jackets dominated the paint and forced tough Cornhusker shot attempts, that was the story here tonight. Georgia Tech finished with a 48-30 edge in the paint, and held Nebraska to 6-26 3-Point shooting.

BIG PICTURE:

Nebraska: The Huskers have never beat Georgia Tech, now 0-2. The last loss came in The Omni back in 1983.

Georgia Tech: The Yellow Jackets improved to 8-11 all-time in the B1G-ACC Challenge. However, when the Jackets play at home during the Challenge, they are now 6-3.

UP NEXT

Nebraska: The Cornhuskers are in the midst of a difficult stretch. They travel to rival Creighton on Saturday. Next week? A trip to Indiana and hosting Purdue. They need to improve quickly.

Georgia Tech: The Yellow Jackets host Syracuse on Saturday at Noon. It prompted a funny moment in the press room. Pastner reiterated numerous times that the game is on Saturday, not on Sunday the 8th. Apparently there was a ticketing issue where all of the tickets read the 8th.

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News, Notes, and Highlighted Games: Wednesday, December 4th

Posted on December 4, 2019 by Rocco Miller

NEWS AND NOTES

-For John Stalica’s UTR Game of the Day, which features the Battle of Riverside!!! – CLICK HERE

-The game of the night last night between Louisville and Michigan, at least as far as rankings, was probably also the least watchable game of the night. Louisville’s defense was fantastic, but neither team was really on their game offensively and it just turned into a low scoring rock fight in a game that didn’t really have any flow. Nevertheless, Louisville did pick up a really big win, and did so decisively.

-The other clash of the titans game wasn’t exactly a nail biter either. Duke went into Michigan State and won handily in a very impressive showing. Whatever the Blue Devils weren’t doing against Stephen F Austin, they were doing in bunches last night. Duke now has a neutral floor win against Kansas, and a true decisive road win at Michigan State. That more than offsets the home loss to SFA.

-Indiana looked impressive against Florida State last night, especially when you considered how good the Noles looked in their exempt tournament against Tennessee and Purdue. I’m sold on Indiana being a really good team at home, but until they go on the road, which they haven’t done yet, I don’t know if I’m all in on them as being a top 25 caliber team.

-Butler remains unbeaten by picking up another nice win against Ole Miss yesterday. It was the first true road win of the season for the Bulldogs.

-Cincinnati played their best game of the season with their win against Vermont last night. They led by as much as 20 at one point. Vermont is a decent team that’s got a few head scratching losses, so it isn’t too shocking that Cincinnati beat them. What’s noteworthy is that they finally looked like a tournament team.

-Charleston Southern. If you don’t follow Under the Radar you may not be sure how good they are by UTR standards. If you do follow Under the Radar, you know they are not all that good by UTR standards. They still went into Missouri and pulled off the upset last night. I think we can conclude that Mizzou just doesn’t have it this year.

-One of the more exciting games last night wasn’t over until after 1am. San Francisco and Arizona State seesawed back and forth the entire way. You got the feeling that had they played for another 40 minutes that neither team would have pulled away. Arizona State was ahead when time ran out, though, which should end up being a really nice road win for the Sun Devils.

HIGHLIGHTED GAMES

-OHIO STATE AT NORTH CAROLINA (***Spotlight Game***). Both teams are in the top ten, and both have won big games. This is the first real test away from home for Ohio State though, so as good as they’ve looked so far, they’ll look infinitely better if they can pick up a road win of this caliber.

-PENN AT VILLANOVA (Big Five). Both teams come in at 5-2, and while Nova looks to be the better team Penn has probably actually beaten better teams up to this point. They are also the defending Big Five champs!

-EAST TENNESSEE STATE AT THE CITADEL (SoCon). Not the most traditional time for a conference opener, but ETSU can improve to 8-1 on the year, pick up a conference win, and pick up their third true road win tonight.

-SOUTH CAROLINA AT UMASS. Neither team has really blown us away, and there is a much better chance that both of these teams will be on the outside looking in come March, but as of now both are 5-3 and have even had a few moments of decent play this season.

-VIRGINIA AT PURDUE (Big Ten/ACC Challenge). Virginia comes into this game unbeaten and is able to absolutely smother teams on defense. Purdue comes into this game at just 4-3, but had a really strong showing in the Emerald Coast Classic with a win over VCU and a near win over a very good Florida State team, so they should have a fair amount of momentum built up coming into tonight. Not to mention they are at home.

-NOTRE DAME AT MARYLAND (Big Ten/ACC Challenge). Notre Dame has won six straight since losing their season opener at North Carolina, but none of those were games like the one they’ll have tonight, which is against a current top five team on the road. It’s another big test for the Irish. A loss won’t really hurt them, but a win would catapult them onto the national scene.

-BYU AT UTAH. This is one of the most bitter rivalries in the country. Utah has been kind of disappointing this season, and while BYU has looked good at times, it hasn’t been all the time. Still, it’s always fun when these two get together.

-GEORGETOWN AT OKLAHOMA STATE. This game had a lot more appeal about 48 hours ago before Georgetown had two of their key players leave the team. Oklahoma State is unbeaten, but isn’t getting a whole lot of respect yet. Still, they are a team to really watch for this season and will probably be in the rankings soon enough.

-TEXAS TECH AT DEPAUL. Texas Tech is a team that we had high expectations for this year, and they could still kick it into gear and have a huge season, but they haven’t shown it yet. They have a tough game against a DePaul team that has looked like an NCAA Tournament caliber team so far this season.

-BOISE STATE AT NEW MEXICO (Mountain West). We think there are three teams that are really worth keeping an eye on in the MWC this year, and New Mexico is one of them. Boise State probably isn’t a tournament team, but they are still much improved from a season ago.

-SAN DIEGO SATE AT COLORADO STATE (Mountain West). This San Diego State team is not in the rankings, but they’ve looked like they belong there so far. They’re unbeaten on the year, have wins at BYU, and neutral floor wins against Creighton and Iowa. They’ve got another very winnable road game in their conference opener tonight.

-WISCONSIN AT NC STATE (Big Ten/ACC Challenge). Neither team has looked all that impressive as of yet, and could use a win in a game like this to kind of get their motor started.

-WAKE FOREST AT PENN STATE (Big Ten/ACC Challenge). I’ve liked what I’ve seen out of this Penn State team, at least at times, and Wake Forest had a pretty good showing out in the Wooden Legacy, so this game is looking a little more intriguing than we thought it would a few weeks ago.

-LMU AT COLORADO. Colorado is unbeaten, has looked good all year, and will likely hold serve and stay that way tonight.

-SANTA CLARA AT NEVADA. This game is kind of hiding in the weeds, but it’s actually really intriguing. Santa Clara has just one loss on the year, and while Nevada is undergoing a huge rebuilding job and got off to an understandably slow start, they’ve won their last three and appear to maybe be finding their rhythm.

-CALIFORNIA AT SAN FRANCISCO. San Francisco dropped a close one to Arizona State last night in a game that went back and forth. They face a Cal team that hasn’t been setting the world on fire, but is much improved from a season ago.

-UTAH STATE AT SAN JOSE STATE (Mountain West). This is a winnable road game for Utah State, which would be their first true road win of the year.

BUY GAMES

-Florida A&M @ Tennessee
-Green Bay @ Xavier
-Iona @ UConn
-NC Central @ Georgia
-VMI @ Duquesne
-Kennesaw State @ UNC Greensboro
-Kansas City @ Iowa State
-Texas State @ Houston
-Texas Southern @ Gonzaga
-Jacksonville @ Marquette
-Eastern Washington @ Washington
-CSUN @ Portland – Portland can get to 7-1

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Under The Radar Game of the Day: Wednesday, December 4th

Posted on December 4, 2019 by John Stalica

UC-Riverside (6-2, 5-2 D1) at Cal Baptist (2-4, 3-4 D1) – 10:00 PM EST (ESPN+)

Tonight’s UTR Game of the Day takes us to the Battle of Riverside – this year Cal Baptist will host the rivalry for the first time as a member of Division 1. The Lancers are in their second year of transitioning up to D1 play. CBU completes a 4-game homestand tonight that saw them beat Central Arkansas in the UTR portion of the 2K Empire Classic before a loss to Georgia State in the championship game (followed by a loss to South Dakota). Milan Acquaah leads the Lancers with 18.1 points a game and 7 assists a game.

The Highlanders of UC-Riverside also started their season with a win at Nebraska and have remained on solid ground since that game. They went 3-1 in the round-robin College Roadshow MTE event with wins against Redlands (non-D1), Longwood and SIU-Edwardsville along with a loss at Pacific. Callum McRae averages 12.3 points a game and 9 rebounds a game for Riverside.

Posted in CBB on TV, Daily Rundown, Under the Radar | Comments Off