News, Notes and Highlighted Games – Sunday, November 25th

Posted on November 25, 2018 by John Stalica

For today’s UTR Game of the Day featuring the Team of the People – CLICK HERE

– Only one exempt tournament of note ended yesterday – Cincinnati won the Emerald Coast Classic after gradually pulling away from Ole Miss with a 71-57 victory. Jarron Cumberland led the Bearcats with 25 points and actually avenged a loss against the Rebels in the 2014 Emerald Coast Classic.

– There was a time when DePaul-Notre Dame was one of the better rivalries in college hoops, and the first half of the game was certainly competitive. The 2nd half, not so much. The Irish won convincingly and knocked the Blue Demons from the ranks of the unbeaten.

– Western Kentucky is another UTR team that came into the season with at-large tournament hopes, but those prospects took a hit with a 63-54 loss at Indiana State. The Trees may be a team worth watching in the Missouri Valley – they’ll have another good UTR test when Wright State comes to town next Saturday.

– Stony Brook is now 3-for-3 in true road games; they beat Rhode Island 68-58 to improve to 5-1 on the season. They are looking more and more like a favorite to win the America East this season.

– The Citadel got roadkill with a win at South Florida yesterday. The Bulldogs look respectable at 4-2 (2-2 in D1 play) – the Bulls, not so much.

– UNC-Greensboro is off to their best start in program history. They followed up a win at Delaware with a win against Louisiana Tech in the Delaware Classic. The SoCon is going to be a fun league to follow this year with UNC-G, Furman and even Citadel having great starts to their respective seasons.

– Yesterday was not one of BYU’s better days. Not only did they lose by 14 at home to a bubbilicious Houston team, their football team blew a 20-point halftime lead in football’s version of the Holy War against Utah.

– Central Florida had a nice win at home against Northern Kentucky; the Norse fell from the rank of the unbeatens.

– Saint Mary’s is now on a 3-game losing streak after a 3-0 start that included a win at New Mexico State. They lost a pair of games in Las Vegas against Utah State and Mississippi State, but losing to Harvard with Harvard’s leading scorer out of action has to sting.

HIGHLIGHTED GAMES

CANISIUS vs. UAB (Advocare Invitational, 7th Place) – This is a chance to salvage one win in Orlando for either team, but little more beyond that.

VILLANOVA vs. FLORIDA STATE (Advocare Invitational, Championship) – Villanova has looked more dominant with wins against Canisius and Oklahoma State in Orlando, whereas Florida State had a stiffer test against LSU to make their way to today’s championship game.

NORTHWESTERN vs. UTAH (Wooden Legacy, 5th Place) – Both teams have rebounded after embarrassing opening games to get a win on Friday night – this is an opportunity for a 2-1 weekend for the winner of this game.

FLORIDA GULF COAST at FLORIDA ATLANTIC – In most years, Gulf Coast would be favored to win this intrastate rivalry. This would not be one of those years.

RICE at WICHITA STATE – Highlighted because you just never know which Wichita team shows up from game to game. They are looking for their first win in the Roundhouse today.

OKLAHOMA STATE vs. LSU (Advocare Invitational, 3rd Place) – LSU is coming off of a tough overtime loss to Florida State; the Cowboys want to get at least one win against a potential NCAA Tournament team before going into the Big 12 gauntlet.

FURMAN at UNC-ASHEVILLE – The Paladins will be looking to increase their overall record to 7-0 with wins at Loyola-Chicago and Villanova already under their belts.

FRESNO STATE vs. HAWAII (Wooden Legacy, 3rd Place) – Hawaii has had a solid tournament so far with a win against Utah (even with a missed opportunity to beat a reloading Seton Hall team). Fresno State smashed Northwestern earlier and will also be looking to cash in at least one more victory this weekend.

OREGON STATE at LONG BEACH STATE – The Beavers will be making a rare roadie by a Power 5 team to the Pyramid at Long Beach in this one.

LONGWOOD at SEATTLE – Normally this would be the UTR Game of the Day, but we do need to highlight our Team of the People as often as we see fit.

MEMPHIS vs. CHARLESTON (Advocare Invitational, 5th Place) – Memphis did start off slowly in Orlando with a loss to Oklahoma State, but still have a window to come out of the weekend with 2 victories.

SOUTH CAROLINA STATE at SAMFORD – Nothing says Buckeye Classic quite like 2 teams south of Tennessee and North Carolina. This is part of a 5-team round-robin event that also includes Cleveland State, Purdue-Fort Wayne and Ohio State.

LA SALLE vs. GRAND CANYON (Wooden Legacy, 7th Place) – The former Team of the People is looking for at least one victory in their first-ever 8-team exempt event in this one; it shouldn’t be too difficult against a La Salle team that hasn’t been very competitive this weekend.

MIAMI vs. SETON HALL (Wooden Legacy, Championship) – The Pirates have looked a lot better this weekend after suffering back-to-back losses against Nebraska and Saint Louis, but beating Miami is going to be a tall order. But not an impossible one – Creighton also beat Clemson in their own exempt event earlier during Feast Week.

OTHER BUY GAMES OF NOTE

– UMass-Lowell at Duquesne
– St. Edwards (D-2) at Stephen F. Austin
– Hampton at Richmond
– Cal State-Bakersfield at USC

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Under The Radar Game of the Day: Savannah State at Liberty

Posted on November 25, 2018 by John Stalica

Savannah State (3-4, 2-4 D1) at Liberty (4-1, 2-1 D1) – 2:00 PM EST (ESPN+)

The Team of the People makes their UTR Game of the Day debut this year – the Savannah State Tigers go on the road to face the Liberty Flames as part of the 5-team round-robin Commodore Classic (also featuring Vanderbilt, Kent State and Alcorn State). The Tigers beat Alcorn State 80-75 yesterday in a game that was also played on Liberty’s campus. Romani Hanson had 19 points off the bench for Savannah State yesterday; Jahlin Smith also had 14 points and 9 boards as well.

Liberty also beat Alcorn State on Friday night after jumping out to a quick 20-4 lead and ended up winning 76-54. Elijah Cuffee led the Flames with 15 points (all in the first half of the game).

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News, Notes, and Highlighted Games: Saturday, Nov 24th

Posted on November 24, 2018 by David Griggs

NEWS AND NOTES

-For John Stalica’s UTR Game of the Day between American and UMBC – CLICK HERE

-Tennessee v Kansas in the Preseason NIT (or whatever the hell they call it now) was the second top five match-up in three days, and like the first between Gonzaga and Duke this one did not disappoint.  Tennessee seemed to have the lead for most of the second half, but Kansas kept it close, then went ahead, and then at the end of the half it was tied so it went into overtime where the Jayhawks picked up the big win, and will perhaps move into the #1 ranking next week.  For Tennessee, the loss was disappointing, but it was hardly damaging.  They’ll win a lot of games against a lot of good teams if they play like that the rest of the year.

-The third place game of the NIT also went into overtime with Marquette knocking off Louisville.  Louisville led for most of the game, and the result wasn’t without some controversy as the Cardinals clearly made a three pointer with about ten mins to go, but were only given 2pts for it.  You can’t really blame the loss on that, though.  Louisville had three open shots at the end of regulation that could have won them the game, two of which were basically layups, and they missed all three.

-Virginia is off to a hot start.  After winning three home buy games, they won three straight to win the Battle 4 Atlantis, and knocked off a very good Wisconsin team yesterday.

-North Carolina had no trouble with UCLA and bounced back after their loss to Texas.

-Florida State knocked off LSU in an overtime thriller.  That game was close the entire way and while LSU didn’t get the win, the loss hardly hurts them.  For Florida State, it will most likely turn out to be a huge resume builder seeing how it was a win against a current top 20 team, and also seeing how LSU appears to be good enough to stay in the rankings.

-Michigan State overcame a first half deficit to beat a very good Texas team and win the Las Vegas Invitational.  Texas should continue to improve, and may even crack the rankings next week, so this was a very nice win for Michigan State

HIGHLIGHTED GAMES

-DEPAUL AT NOTRE DAME.  If DePaul can knock off a struggling Notre Dame team, they can improve to 4-0 on the season, and arguably have one of the better resumes out of all the Big East teams to date.  Notre Dame has basically played nothing but home buy games up to this point, and they even lost one of those, so they have a lot of workt od to do tget things turned around.

-NORTHERN ILLINOIS VS JAMES MADISON (Men Against Cancer Oakland Hoops Challenge).  These ate two UTR teams that are off to pretty good starts, and JMU has some decent wins already.

-NORTHEASTERN AT DAVIDSON.  Northeastern has been kind of disappointing so far considering how good we thought they’d be, but they still have time to turn it around.  Davidson has appeared to struggle as well, but at the end of the day they have a 4-1 record and are in fairly decent shape if they can keep winning.

-SAVANNAH STATE AT ALCORN STATE.  The Team of the People!!!  Savannah State has a winnable road game today, and is trying to pick up their third win of the season, and improve to 3-2 in non-buy games!!

-WESTERN KENTUCKY AT INDIANA STATE.  WKU has a nice neutral floor win against West Virginia, but missed some chances to add even more to their resume.  They are going after their first true road win today.

-STONY BROOK AT RHODE ISLAND.  Up to this point, Stony Brook has been the more impressive team.  If they can pull this one off they can improve to 5-1 on the season, and 3-0 in road buy games.

-GEORGE MASON VS BAYLOR (Emerald Coast Classic).  Both teams have been disappointing, and while both still have potential, the sooner they get things turned around the better.

-UNC GREENSBORO VS LOUISIANA TECH (Delaware Invitational).  This is a UTR game, but it is also a very big game between a potential SoCon frontrunner in UNCG, and a potential at-large caliber team in LA Tech.  LA Tech already has a big win at Wichita State, and their only loss was to LSU, who they took down to the wire in Baton Rouge.

-HOUSTON AT BYU.  Both teams are off to good starts, but neither team has won a notable game yet, and since neither started out near the rankings no one has really noticed either team yet.  It’ll be interesting to see what they do against each other today.

-NORTHERN KENTUCKY AT UCF.  This is a really big game between an unbeaten NKU team that’s facing it’s biggest test, and a UCF team that appears to be among the best in the American, and who just won three straight to win their exempt tournament.

-COLORADO AT AIR FORCE (Front Range).  We love the Front Range!!!!  Colorado is looking for their first road win of the year.

-CINCINNATI VS OLE MISS (Emerald Coast Classic).  Both teams have respectable records, but both need notable wins.

-HARVARD AT SAINT MARY’S.  SMC has looked good at times, but they’re off to a somewhat modest 3-2 start and should be expected to win games like this at home if they feel they are an NCAA Tournament caliber team.

 

BUY GAMES (and other games worth mentioning, but not highlighting)

-Campbell @ Georgetown – Chris Clemsons for Campbell will be the best player on the floor
-New Hampshire @ UConn
-Saint Francis U @ Virginia Tech
-Marist @ Buffalo
-Western Illinois @ Nebraska
-Valparaiso @ West Virginia
-The Citadel @ South Florida – USF can improve to 5-1 on the year
-Chicago State @ Bradley – Bradley can improve to 6-1 on the year
-Denver @ Longwood – Longwood can improve to 6-1 on the year
-Saint Peter’s @ North Texas – North Texas looking to stay unbeaten
-Central Arkansas @ Saint Louis
-Iona @ Providence
-Belmont @ Kennesaw State – mentioned because Belmont can improve to 5-0
-Lehigh @ Kansas State – Lehigh has just one loss so far
-Dartmouth @ San Franscisco – the Dons can improve to 6-0
-High Point @ East Carolina
-Northern Colorado @ Texas Tech – both teams unbeaten
-Mercer @ NC State
-Hofstra @ VCU
-Missouri State @ Murray State – Murray can improve to 3-0
-Abilene Christian vs UC Riverside – ACU can improve to 6-0
-Jackson State @ San Diego
-Cal State Fullerton @ Sacramento State – Sac State can remain unbeaten
-Florida A&M @ LMU – LMU can remain unbeaten

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Under The Radar Game of the Day: American at UMBC

Posted on November 24, 2018 by John Stalica

American (2-1) at UMBC (4-2, 3-2 D1) – 1:00 PM EST (ESPN3)

It’s Beltway vs. Beltway in today’s UTR Game of the Day – the American Eagles make the trip up I-95 to face off against the Maryland-Baltimore County Retrievers. American beat New Hampshire 68-44 in their most recent outing, but their most noteworthy result so far has been a win against a George Mason that was expected to be a contender in the Atlantic 10 this season. Sa’eed Nelson leads the Eagles through 3 games with 16 points per game and 6 rebounds a game.

UMBC is back home after playing 3 games in 4 days in the Bahamas (a round-robin Bimini Jam event) where they defeated Air Force and High Point but lost to South Dakota. They did finish 1st in the event via tiebreaker after finishing 2-1 along with High Point. 4 players currently average double figures in scoring for the Retrievers; Joe Sherburne leads the way with 12.8 points a game.

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News, Notes, and Highlighted Games: Friday, Nov 23rd

Posted on November 23, 2018 by David Griggs

NEWS AND NOTES

-For John Stalica’s UTR Game of the Day between Delaware and UNC Greensboro – CLICK HERE

-Texas picked up the biggest win of the day in what was perhaps the most exciting game of the day.  They fell behind by double digits early to North Carolina, but fought their way back into it and actually controlled most of the second half.  It was a huge early season statement win for the Longhorns.  They came into the week unranked.  They will almost assuredly be ranked next week.

-Michigan’s blowout win over UCLA was surprising not so much because of the win, but because they seemed to have a 20pt lead throughout the entire game.

And….that was how most of the games played out yesterday.  I hope you found some good football to watch, because basically all but two of the basketball games yesterday were boring.

 

HIGHLIGHTED GAMES

-DAYTON VS OKLAHOMA (Battle 4 Atlantis).  Dayton really hung in with Virginia yesterday, whereas Oklahoma pretty much got blasted by Wisconsin.  Dayton seems to need this a lot more than Wisky because the way the A10 is shaping up their opportunities for notable wins are gonna be few and far between the rest of the year.

-VILLANOVA VS OKLAHOMA STATE (Advocare Invitational).  Nova looked good yesterday, but still doesn’t have a notable win on their resume.  This would be their first, and even then it’s kinda hard to say how much it will help them because we really aren’t sure how good the Pokes are gonna end up being this year.  But for now, Oklahoma State comes in at a respectable 3-1.

-VIRGINIA VS WISCONSIN (Battle 4 Atlantis).  Two ranked teams that have looked really solid going at it today.  Neither team has a loss, but this is also the biggest test for each of them so far.

-MIAMI FL VS FRESNO STATE (Wooden Legacy).  Fresno State looked impressive in their win yesterday, and can continue to build up their resume if they can continue to play well in this event.  They face an unbeaten Miami FL team today, who’s also looking to make a case for themselves.

-NORTH CAROLINA VS UCLA (Las Vegas Invitational).  North Carolina lost a thriller to Texas yesterday, and UCLA was just blown out of the arena by Michigan State.  Still, it’s a neutral floor match-up between two current top 20 teams.  The fact that it’s a third place game doesn’t lessen or change how the committee will look at it.

-LSU VS FLORIDA STATE (Adcovare Invitational).  We’ve got another neutral floor top 20 match up.  Neither team has lost yet, and both have played some fairly decent competition, but this will be the toughest test for either one so far.  It would be a really nice resume win for whoever pulls it off.

-KENT STATE AT VANDERBILT.  Kent State comes into this game with just one loss, and can make a pretty nice statement if they’re able to pull this one out on the road.  Vandy comes in at 4-0 with a pretty nice win out at USC on their resume already.

-MARSHALL AT MARYLAND.  Both teams are unbeaten, and we’re expecting Marshall to be really tough in C-USA this year.  They haven’t really been tested this season, so it will be interesting to see what they can do on the road against the Terps.

-TEXAS VS MICHIGAN STATE (Las Vegas Invitational).  Texas picked up a huge win against North Carolina yesterday, and although they’re not in the rankings I think they’ve shown they are a top 25 caliber team.  Michigan State blasted UCLA in their game and is coming in with a ton of momentum.

-CHARLESTON VS UAB (Advocare Invitational).  Neither team looked all that impressive yesterday, and both will need to build up some momentum and go on a run if they want any chance at all at impressing the committee.  A win today would be a nice start.

-GEORGE MASON VS CINCINNATI (Emerald Coast Classic).  Mason has had a very disappointing start to the season when you consider what their expectations were, but they have won two in a row coming into this one.  Cincinnati is trying to generate some momentum for themselves as well.

-LOUISVILLE VS MARQUETTE (NIT Season Tip-Off).  Both teams care coming off impressive efforts against top 5 opponents, but neither managed the win.  It’s very possible that these are two NCAA Tournament teams, and whenever you can win away from home against a tournament caliber team, it’s good for the resume.

-TENNESSEE VS KANSAS (NIT Season Tip-Off).  This is our third game of the year where two top five teams are going at it on a neutral floor!  Both teams have looked great coming into this game.  Winning a game like this would be a #1 seed caliber win.  I like that we’ve gotten to see this game, and two other games like this, this early in the season.

-BAYLOR VS OLE MISS (Emerald Coast Classic).  Neither team has really done anything impressive, both have a chance to make a little bit of noise in this tournament.

-BUTLER VS FLORIDA (Battle 4 Atlantis).  Both teams have been tested, but neither team has really passed any of those tests.  This is a bit of a desperation game, or at least November’s version of a desperation game.

-UMASS VS NEVADA (Las Vegas Holiday Invitational).  UMass CLOBBERED Southern Illinois in one of the more surprising results of the day.  They come in at 4-2 with a chance to knock off a top ten team on a neutral floor.  I don’t know how realistic their chance is, but they at least get a chance.

-SETON HALL VS HAWAII (Wooden Legacy).  Both teams picked up nice wins yesterday, and have a chance to keep that momentum going with another win today.

-TULSA VS SOUTHERN ILLINOIS (Las Vegas Holiday Invitational).  Southern Illinois is good, but they have quite frankly run out of strikes, and it ain’t even December yet.  They cannot afford to drop anymore games to what appear to be sub-NIT caliber teams.

 

BUY GAMES (and other games worth mentioning, but not higlighting)

-Robert Morris @ Purdue
-Alcorn State @ Liberty
-Boston U @ Rutgers
-Hoston Baptist @ Wake Forest
-James Madison @ Oakland – JMU can improve to 5-1 and pick up their 3rd true road win
-Chattanooga @ Michigan
-Prairie View A&M @ Georgia Tech
-La Salle vs Northwestern – Wooden Legacy
-Tennessee State @ Kentucky
-UC Davis @ Indiana
-UNC Greensboro @ Delaware – both teams come in with 4-1 records
-Cleveland State @ Ohio State
-UT Arlington @ Arkansas
-Grand Canyon vs Utah – Wooden Legacy
-Southern Utah @ UNLV

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Under The Radar Game of the Day: UNC-Greensboro at Delaware

Posted on November 23, 2018 by John Stalica

For up to the minute results for In Season Exempt Tournaments – CLICK HERE

UNC-Greensboro (4-1, 3-1 D1) at Delaware (4-1, 2-1 D1) – 7:00 PM EST (Watch Live)

Tonight’s matchup is the first of the 3-game round robin Delaware Invitational between the UNC-Greensboro Spartans and Delaware Blue Hens. (Both teams will also play Louisiana Tech this weekend.) UNC-G comes in on a modest 3-game winning streak with wins against UNC-Wilmington, Johnson & Wales and Prairie View. Francis Alonso leads the Spartans with 21 points a game through the first 5 games of the year for UNC-G.

All of Delaware’s D-1 games have been played on the road so far this year – they had a close loss to Maryland in their opener along with an overtime win at Saint Peter’s and a win at Cornell. Eric Carter leads Delaware with 18.6 points a game and 9 rebounds a game through their first 5 games this year; Kevin Anderson also averages 15.2 points a game for the Blue Hens.

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