CIT Game of the Day – Friday, March 20, 2015: High Point at Eastern Kentucky

High Point at Eastern Kentucky, 7:00 PM Eastern, watchcollegeinsider.com

The Second Round of the CIT tips off tonight in Richmond, Kentucky as the Eastern Kentucky Colonels host the High Point Panthers.  EKU enters tonight’s game at 20-11 on the season.  The Colonels finished in first place in the East Division of the Ohio Valley Conference this season, receiving a bye into the conference tournament semifinals.  They lost the semifinal game by one point, 53-52, to Belmont, who then went on to beat Murray State and take the conference’s automatic bid.  EKU picked up a six point win earlier this week at home over Norfolk State to advance to the second round and will look to ride their home court advantage (they only lost twice at home all season) into the quarterfinals.

Eastern Kentucky’s opponent tonight is the Big South’s High Point Panthers.  High Point (23-9) got by Maryland-Eastern Shore in Tuesday night’s CIT Game of the Day to advance to the second round.  John Brown scored 23 points and pulled down 7 rebounds against the Hawks to lead his team to the victory.  Devante Wallace was also a major factor in the win, scoring 19.  Both players will need to step up their games even more if they want to pick up the win on the road tonight and extend their season at least one more game.

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NCAA Tournament: Thursday, March 19th

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-All four games of the first round were highly entertaining with Hampton beating Manhattan in an up-tempo, albeit sloppy, game.  Ole Miss came from 17 down to beat BYU and move on to face Xavier, North Florida and Robert Morris went back and forth, and Dayton overcame a late deficit to come back and beat Boise State.  Hopefully that is a sign of things to come.

-#14 NORTHEASTERN VS #3 NOTRE DAME (Midwest).  If this were an out of conference game, it would be one of Notre Dame’s tougher ones.  Northeastern is a team that looked good early, but then appeared to struggle in conference a little more than expected.  The Irish have one of their best teams in several years and are looking to go deep.

-#14 UAB VS #3 IOWA STATE (South).  Iowa State appears to be playing their best basketball right now.  UAB was a very strong team at home this year, but not so much on the road.  They’ve got a very young team and should be strong next year, but they appear to be way overmatched today.

-#14 GEORGIA STATE VS #3 BAYLOR (West).  Georgia State had a good year, but we were expecting them to be even better.  Although they finished first and won the conference tournament, we thought they’d be good enough to actually land inside the bubble.  Baylor, is certainly battle tested and looked good down the stretch as well, and they appear to be way too much for Georgia State.

-TEXAS SOUTHERN VS ARIZONA (West).  Texas Southern surprised us a little bit out of conference, but this is a huge mismatch against an Arizona team that looks almost as good as anyone right now.

-#11 TEXAS VS #6 BUTLER (Midwest).  Texas played a very strong schedule this year, but ended up losing most of the games, hence the #11 seed.  I actually think Butler is better than a #6 seed, especially when you look at their profile.  It should be a good one today.

-#11 UCLA VS #6 SMU (South).  This is a match up between a UCLA team that almost no one thinks should be in the field, and an SMU team that many here at Hoops HD feel is overseeded.  So, not exactly the best build up for a game.

-OLE MISS VS XAVIER (West).  Xavier looked really impressive in the Big East Tournament beating two ranked teams away from home and drastically improving their profile, but they’ve been inconsistent throughout the year.  So has Ole Miss.  Both teams have shown they can play with good teams and lose to weaker ones, so this is anybody’s guess.

-OHIO STATE VS VCU (West).  VCU has struggled with injuries, but still looked good all throughout their conference tournament.  Ohio State hasn’t looked all that good away from home at any point, and it’ll be interesting to see how they handle VCU’s pressure.

-#16 LAFAYETTE VS #1 VILLANOVA (East).  Nova is good enough to win this whole tournament.  Today is kind of a tune up against a Lafayette team that finished in the middle of the Patriot League.

-#9 PURDUE VS #8 CINCINNATI (Midwest).  Cincinnati was inconsistent this year, but they did manage some pretty impressive wins.  Purdue was really playing well down the stretch so they have some momentum coming into this game.  The winner will most likely get Kentucky, which is interesting because Cincinnati and Kentucky are roughly eighty miles apart, but they rarely play.

-#13 HARVARD VS #4 NORTH CAROLINA (West).  Harvard was a team we were expecting a lot out of, and although they won the Ivy League in exciting fashion, they still didn’t run away with it like we were expecting.  They do have a lot of talent on their roster, though.  North Carolina was really playing well down the stretch and could be a very dangerous team in this tournament.

-#12 SFA VS #5 UTAH(South).  SFA has a bloated record against a very weak schedule, but that was also the case a year ago and they managed a big win in the round of 64.  Utah’s profile isn’t all that strong, but their team is pretty good and they could potentially go pretty far.

-#9 LSU VS #8 NC STATE (East).  LSU seems to beat the good teams and struggle against the poor ones, so one never knows who is going to show up.  NC State is fairly solid, although they didn’t look it in their last game against Duke.  This one is pretty evenly matched and should be fun to watch.

-#16 HAMPTON VS #1 KENTUCKY (Midwest). Kentucky hasn’t lost all year and I don’t expect them to lose today.  It could get ugly.

-#12 WOFFORD VS #5 ARKANSAS (West).  I really like this Wofford team and certainly think they’re good enough to pull off a win in the round of 64, but Arkansas isn’t the best match up for them.  Arkansas looked great this year whenever they weren’t playing Kentucky.

-#13 EASTERN WASHINGTON VS #4 GEORGETOWN (South).  Eastern Washington is a tough team that managed a win at Indiana earlier this year, and beat a Montana team on the road to win the conference tournament, so they are potentially dangerous.  Georgetown is strong, but they’ve gone out early in the tournament before and I wouldn’t be entirely shocked if it happened again today.

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CIT Game of the Day – Thursday, March 19, 2015: UT Martin at Northwestern State

UT-Martin at Northwestern State, 7:30 PM Eastern, watchcollegeinsider.com

Televisions and computers today will be tuned in to watch college basketball today as the first 16 games of the Round of 64 of the NCAA Tournament take place.  What the overwhelming majority of those watching today’s games may not realize is that there are actually 17 games on the college basketball schedule.  And it is that one extra game, the 17th, that is the focus of today’s CIT Game of the Day.  At 7:30 PM Eastern time this evening, the Tennessee-Martin Skyhawks will be in Natchitoches, Louisiana to take on the Northwestern State Demons in the final game of the CIT First Round, with a date Saturday afternoon at South Carolina Upstate awaiting the winner.

The UT-Martin Skyhawks have won 18 games so far this season, a vast improvement over their eight win campaign in 2013-14.  They received the #4 seed in the Ohio Valley Conference tournament, falling in the quarterfinal round to Morehead State.  This has been the Skyhawks’ best season since 2009, when they notched 22 victories (a mark they could at least tie if they reach the CIT finals).  UT-Martin is led by Deville Smith, who notably scored 21 points in a hard fought 6 point loss at home to Murray State in the team’s regular season finale.  Of course, the most notable win on UT-Martin’s resume came back on New Year’s Day, when they defeated one of our favorite non-Division I teams, Crowley’s Ridge, by a narrow 23 point margin.

Tonight’s opponent for the Skyhawks is the Southland Conference’s Northwestern State Demons.  The Demons finished the regular season with a 19-12 record, falling in the Southland tournament semifinals to Stephen F. Austin.  The majority of Northwestern State’s success this year came in conference, with only one win in non-conference play against Division I competition.  The two players to keep an eye on tonight are Jalan West and Zikitern Woodley.  With both West and Woodley back next season, the Demons may be a force to contend with in the conference race.  For now, they will be a force for the UT-Martin Skyhawks to contend with as both teams battle to keep their seasons going for at least one more game.

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CIT Game of the Day – Wednesday, March 18, 2015: Maryland-Eastern Shore at High Point

Maryland-Eastern Shore at High Point, 7:00 PM Eastern, watchcollegeinsider.com

Tonight’s CIT Game of the Day comes from High Point, North Carolina as the Big South’s co-regular season champion High Point Panthers welcome in the MEAC’s Maryland-Eastern Shore Hawks.  High Point was en route to not only the school’s best season at the Division I level but also its first NCAA tournament bid when the Panthers had their entire season derailed in their last two games.  It began in the regular season finale when they suffered a triple overtime loss at Charleston Southern, giving the Buccaneers the top seed in the Big South tournament.  It then got worse when Gradner-Webb knocked High Point out of the Big South tournament, this time in one overtime, in the quarterfinals.  The team led by John Brown, one of the most exciting mid-major conference players in the entire country, will look to rebound from those two heartbreaking losses at home tonight as they begin their quest for the CIT championship.

Tonight’s opponent is a team making only its second ever postseason appearance and first since the 1974 NIT.  The Maryland-Eastern Shore Hawks have for years been stuck in the MEAC basement, not even close enough to sniff a decent seed in the MEAC tournament, let alone a postseason bid beyond that.  This season saw Bobby Collins take over as head coach.  Collins had success at both Hampton and Winston-Salem State, including being the top assistant on the Hampton team that beat Iowa State as a 15 seed in the NCAA tournament, highlights of which were all over TV in last night’s First Four game and will certainly be shown tomorrow when they play Kentucky.  Collins has been, in our opinion at least, the best success story in the entire country for a first year (with his current team) head coach, taking a program that won only 6 games last season and leading them to an 18-14 record, a high seed in the MEAC tournament, and a postseason bid in the CIT.  Tonight, we will find out if this amazing season can continue.

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Hoops HD’s State of the Game Podcast Special

NEWS, NOTES AND LINKS

-The NCAA Championship Tournament tips off tonight.  Just in case you didn’t know.

-For Chad Sherwood’s CIT Game of the Day – CLICK HERE

 

College basketball always ends on a high note where it is on the minds of every sports fan, and even on the minds of people who aren’t sports fans at all.  As an event, the NCAA Tournament is perhaps the biggest sporting event in the country when you consider just how many people it engages.  With such a great finale, I think we end things under the impression that everything is great in the game of college basketball.  But, in reality, we feel that things are deteriorating.  The NCAA Tournament is a hugely popular event, but as whole, the sport is losing popularity and interest.

David and Lee, who normally don’t get along, discuss the issues they feel that are negatively impacting the game, such as low attendance, low TV ratings, a lack of tradition and rivalry after so many conferences have been realigned, the overall quality of play not being as good, very little interest in the sport for over half the season, and much more.

We want college basketball to be great all year, and of interest to the fans all year.  We also feel that it used to be, and things could be done to make it that way again.  We timed this intentionally because we wanted to discuss these matters when college basketball was king of the hill.  It’s worth the listen.

 

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CIT Game of the Day – Tuesday, March 17, 2015: Louisiana-Lafayette at Incarnate Word

Louisiana-Lafayette at Incarnate Word, 8:00 PM Eastern, watchcollegeinsider.com

The First Round of the CIT continues tonight with five games on the slate, highlighted by Incarnate Word’s first ever postseason game (in only their second year of transitioning up to the Division I level).  The UIW Cardinals will be hosting the Ragin’ Cajuns of Louisiana-Lafayette tonight at 8:00 PM Eastern.

UIW enters tonight’s first round game at 18-10 overall, including having impressively gone 10-8 in the Southland Conference.  UIW most notably won at Nebraska back on December 10, in one of the most notable upsets of the non-conference season (even if Nebraska’s season imploded on them this year).  The Cardinals played their first full Division I schedule this year and will not be eligible for the NCAA or NIT tournaments until the 2017-18 basketball season.  They are led by Denzel Livingston who has scored 30 or more points six times already this season.  If he gets to 30 again tonight, it will be a tough game for Louisiana-Lafayette.

The Ragin’ Cajuns of Louisiana-Lafayette enter tonight’s game at 20-13 on the season.  They finished in fourth place in the Sun Belt, falling to Georgia State in the conference tournament semifinal round.  Shawn Long is the player to keep an eye on tonight as he is a legitimate double-double threat every single game.  If he gets there tonight, the Ragin’ Cajuns could very well pull off the road win and advance to the second round of the CIT.

(For my NCAA Tournament Bracketing Analysis, CLICK HERE.)

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