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Green Bay at Chicago State, 8:00 PM Eastern (no TV)

As we wind to the very last handful of non-conference games this season, the SCGD will be traveling tonight to the Windy City for the matchup between the Horizon League’s Green Bay Phoenix and the WAC’s Chicago State Cougars.  Already 2-0 in Horizon League play, Green Bay gets their final non-league game tonight.  Overall, the Phoenix sit at 11-3 with an RPI of 53, BPI of 78, KenPom of 73 and SOS of 61, all very solid numbers for a team not in a major conference.  Unfortunately, just to maintain those ratings they will have to keep winning.  The only remaining top 100 KenPom opponent for Green Bay is a road trip in late February to Cleveland State (who may no longer even be top 100 at that point).  The Phoenix did score one win of note in non-conference play, a home victory over the Virginia Cavaliers.  They also did stub their toes at Eastern Michigan (though Eastern Michigan is a solid yet underrated team).  An at-large bid would be a longshot for the Phoenix, and would probably require them to win out all the way to their conference tournament final..or close to that.  A loss tonight at Chicago State would be devastating.

Chicago State enters tonight’s game at 6-8 overall and 1-0 so far in WAC play.  Their one WAC victory, at RPI 279 Idaho, is also their best win of the year.  The Cougars are in their first year playing in the WAC but are no strangers to being in a “western” conference.  They have spent the past several years as members of the now-defunct (but always remembered in the hearts of SCGD fans everywhere) Great West Conference.  In fact, they have the distinction of being the last team to win a Great West game, when they defeated Houston Baptist to win the Great West tournament championship last season before losing to Illinois-Chicago in the first round of the CIT.  They also were and possibly forever will be the only team to play in the CIT with a losing record, as that tournament will only select teams that are .500 or better overall, other than an automatic bid that it gave to the Great West tournament champion the past few years.  A win by the Cougars tonight when they host Green Bay would be a major upset — but one should never count out what may be the best team in Chicago (ok, DePaul did beat them this season–but it took overtime to do so!)

Don’t miss our Sunday Bracket Racket show here:

https://hoopshd.com/2014/01/06/bracket-racket-jan-5th/

Southern at Texas Southern, 9:00 PM, ESPNU

While the eyes of the nation are in Pasadena tonight for a little football game between Florida State and Auburn, the SCGD will be in Houston, Texas for a SWAC matchup between the defending SWAC tournament champions and the defending SWAC regular season champions.  Southern University won the SWAC’s automatic bid last season in a thrilling 45-44 game over an 18 loss Prarie View A&M team before falling to Gonzaga 64-58 in the round of 64.  While Southern was the top seed in the SWAC tournament last season, the Jaguars actually finished a game behind Texas Southern in the standings, but APR ineligibility for postseason play kept the Tigers out of the conference tournament.

Southern enters tonight’s game at 5-9 on the season with three of those wins coming against non-D1 competition.  However they made headlines in one of those three wins, defeating Champion Baptist 116-12, the third highest margin of victory for a Division 1 school ever, and only the fifth time a D1 team had won by 100 or more points.  While Southern certainly will not be able to perform like that against SWAC opponents, there is no reason to believe that this team will not be able to contend for the league title this season.

Texas Southern enters tonight’s game with a 5-8 record including a road win over Temple.  They are led by Aaric Murray, who alone is reason enough to watch their games.  While Mike Davis’ team was unimpressive in their non-conference slate other than the Temple victory, they do still remain the favorite to win this league, and a victory tonight will get them off to an early lead as we head into the conference season.

Conference play is getting into full swing!! In this week’s edition, we look at UConn’s sluggish start, and evaluate how it will impact their overall NCAA Tournament seed. We also look closely at an Iowa team who doesn’t have any monster wins yet, but has played Iowa State, Villanova and Wisconsin very tough in games away from home.

We look at Colorado’s big win against Oregon, and David makes one of his biggest bloopers ever as he momentarily forgets what conference Colorado is in.

We talk about San Diego State’s big win at Kansas, and what it means for the Jayhawks moving forward. We also preview all of this week’s upcoming action.

To see Chad Sherwood’s SCGD, CLICK THE LINK BELOW:

https://hoopshd.com/2014/01/05/small-conference-game-of-the-day-january-8/

-NORTHWESTERN AT MICHIGAN (Big Ten). Michigan has had a rough year and will need a very strong showing in conference play if they want to turn it around. They certainly need to take care of business in games like this.

-NORTHERN IOWA AT WICHITA STATE (Missouri Valley). Wichita will be favored in all the rest of their games, and may even contend for a #1 seed if they win out.

-PURDUE AT MINNESOTA (Big Ten). Both teams have looked good this year, but neither have any really big wins on their profile, so you get the sense that his is one that both of them could really use.

-USC AT UCLA (Pac Twelve). This should be a fun one. Not much was expected out of USC this year, but they are 9-4 with some respectable wins against Xavier and Dayton. Their new coach has also been rather vocal in the press about the rivalry. If USC can pull off the upset, they’ll have three notable wins, all away from home, and one will have to start paying attention to them.

-SAN DIEGO STATE AT KANSAS. San Diego State is a good team, but this is a very tall order against a Kansas team that has tested themselves against a tough schedule, and that has looked really good at home.

-OREGON AT COLORADO (Pac Twelve). This should be a great one between two conference front runners who could both easily wind up as protected seeds. Colorado has looked good this year, especially at home.

-PROVIDENCE AT VILLANOVA (Big East). Providence continues to deal with off the court issues, and Nova continues to look like a top ten team. They shouldn’t have much trouble in this one.

-IOWA AT WISCONSIN (Big Ten). This is a great match-up. Wisconsin has looked as good as anyone in the country, and although Iowa hasn’t played too many road games, they did look good at Iowa State, and managed some big neutral site wins as well.

Binghamton at Maine, 4:30 PM Eastern (no TV)

The SCGD heads to Orono, Maine today for the America East battle between the Binghamton Bearcats and the Maine Black Bears.  This game is certainly not going to be between two teams vying for postseason berths, or even for winning records this seasons.  Binghamton enters the game at 3-10 overall while Maine is 2-10.  Both teams have RPIs, BPIs and KenPoms below 300.

Despite these weak numbers, this game is featured for a pair of fairly startling upsets pulled by these teams in the past week.  Binghamton defeated Bryant at home last Saturday.  Bryant is the current favorite to win the Northeast Conference and all other losses before last Saturday’s had been to teams ranked in the top 100.  While it was certainly not a game that garnered any national attention, this was actually one of the biggest upsets of the season so far just in terms of the relative talent between the two teams.

If the Binghamton upset was one of the biggest, perhaps what Maine did last weekend was the biggest.  The Black Bears entered the Dr. Pepper Classic in Chattanooga without a single Division I victory.  Their semifinal game against a solid Middle Tennessee team seemed to be a complete mismatch.  Instead, Maine pulled the shocking upset in overtime, and almost beat Chattanooga the next day to win the championship.  This upset victory, combined with Binghamton’s, makes today’s matchup between these two sub-300 teams our choice for the SCGD.

For a preview of all of today’s key action, please check out David Griggs’ Highlighted games post by clicking here.

South Carolina-Upstate at Mercer, 4:30 PM Eastern (no TV)

The SCGD heads to Hawkins Arena in Macon, Georgia this afternoon for the first of two meetings this season between the top contenders in the Atlantic Sun.  Mercer is off to a solid 10-5 start, though 1-1 in conference after an upset loss Wednesday night at North Florida.  The Bears have had back-to-back disappointing seasons, despite solid regular season records and the conference tournament on their home court.  Both seasons ended in losses to Florida Gulf Coast (in the semifinals two years ago and in the championship game last season).  This season they hope to finally get over the hump and return to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1985.  With a solid road win at Ole Miss already under their belts, the Bears should be right there contending all season.

The non-conference season has had one team emerge as the clear contender to Mercer, the South Carolina-Upstate Spartans.  Upstate has already scored road wins over Virginia Tech and South Carolina.  While neither of those teams is expected to be in postseason play this season, a road win over a power conference team is never easy for a team from a league like the A-Sun.  Although Mercer is already playing their third conference game of the year, today’s contest is Upstate’s first A-Sun game.  The two teams will meet again in South Carolina on February 1.  However, the winner of today’s contest will have the early edge as we move into the conference season.