For our latest Under the Radar podcast, CLICK HERE.
Louisiana-Lafayette at Georgia Southern, 7:30 PM Eastern, No TV
Looking at this evening’s schedule, the UTR Game of the Day pick at first seemed obvious. Arguably the two best teams in the OVC are playing each other at 9:00 PM on ESPNU as Belmont travels to Murray State. However, looking closer at the standings, both of those teams are only in second place in their respective divisions. The two division leaders, Eastern Kentucky and Eastern Illinois, are also playing tonight (7:30 PM Eastern, live streaming at ovcsports.com). However, instead of either of those games, we have chosen to send our UTR crew to Statesboro, Georgia, to take a look at an UTR team that even the UTR guys have ignored so far this year — the Georgia Southern Eagles.
The 11 team Sun Belt Conference runs a full double round-robin schedule, meaning that each teams gets a home-and-home with every other team in the conference. While this is, in our opinion, the best way to produce a true regular season champion, it does have a significant disadvantage for a league with more than 10 teams in it. The SBC conference season is 20 games long, resulting in two fewer chances for a non-conference game. Georgia Southern made matters even worse this year by scheduling three of their nine non-conference games against non-D1 competition. In other words, prior to conference play, we only had six games to evaluate the Eagles with. They went 4-2 in those games, with close losses at Illinois and at UCF, and the best win coming at South Florida. The Eagles at currently 10-3 overall after sweeping their non-D1 games and starting 3-1 in league play, the loss coming by one point at Texas-Arlington. The start is good enough to have Georgia Southern sitting at second place in the conference and to hold a 130 RPI, second best in the league. It is also good enough to have them on our radar.
Tonight, Georgia Southern welcomes in the best team so far in conference play, and we are not talking about Georgia State. With the preseason favorites appearing to be imploding in early Sun Belt play, the defending conference tournament champions from Louisiana-Lafayette are 4-0 and in first place (10-5 overall). The Ragin’ Cajuns are coming off of a home win over Georgia State and also have a home win over one of the top teams in Conference USA, Louisiana Tech, to their credit. If they can pick up the road victory in Statesboro tonight, Louisiana-Lafayette will have asserted itself as the early favorite to take the regular season crown, something we did not think possible about a month and a half ago when Georgia State was blowing out Green Bay and taking Old Dominion to overtime on the road. With the conference tournament being held practically in Lafayette’s backyard in New Orleans, and the top two teams in the Sun Belt tournament receiving byes into the semifinals, the Ragin’ Cajuns appear to be well on their way to setting themselves up for another shot at the NCAA tournament.
Highlighted Games for Wednesday, Jan 14th
-SAN DIEGO STATE AT WYOMING (***SPOTLIGHT GAME***) (Mountain West). Wyoming is into the rankings, and although they’re not in my personal rankings, I cannot say that I think it is undeserved. They have a bloated record, though, and they need some muscle on their resume. This is an underexposed game, but it is HUGELY important. Wyoming needs a notable win, and SDSU needs to stop losing games to anyone that’s even half-way decent.
-NOTRE DAME AT GEORGIA TECH (ACC). Notre Dame is having a great year, and will face another challenge tonight. GA Tech isn’t good overall, but they’re good at home.
-RUTGERS AT MARYLAND (Big Ten). Rutgers had a season signature moment over the weekend. I seriously doubt they’re good enough to build on it, but if they take down a Maryland team that’s looking like they’ll get a protected seed, it adds a ton of momentum toward Rutgers.
-NORTH CAROLINA AT NC STATE (ACC). Duke v UNC is the biggest rivalry, but I think this is the more bitter rivalry. They hate each other. Duke and UNC like to hate each other. UNC and NC State hate to hate each other. NC State scored a huge win in their last game. If they get this one, they have bragging rights, and they’re close to the bubble. In short, it’s a high stakes bitter rivalry.
-SMU AT TEMPLE (American). Temple is safely inside the bubble and SMU is trying to get there. This is big because it’s one of the last few chances SMU has at a quality win away from home against an NCAA Tournament caliber team.
-HARVARD AT BOSTON COLLEGE (Bean Pot). It’s a very underrated, but as I’ve recently realized very real mythical conference, the Bean Pot. BC, Harvard, BU, and Northeastern. This game is only mentioned because if Harvard wins the Ivy, they’ll be seeded inside the bubble. It’s a rivalry game, but only sort of. One of these teams have dominated the series, and it’s not the team from a power conference. Harvard can win the Bean Pot outright with a perfect 3-0 record. In fact, our Hoops HD Research Team is informing me that Harvard has won their last 17 Bean Pot games.
-SAINT JOHN’S AT PROVIDENCE (Big East). Both teams are strong and are currently projected as inside the bubble, so it’s a chance for a quality win. The Johnnies are good, but they need some notable road wins.
-LA SALLE AT DAYTON (Atlantic Ten). Dayton is being grossly ignored. A win gets them to 14-2 on the year, and they’ve accomplished that despite being ignored, and despite having far more bad luck than good.
-GOOD DAVIDSON AT UMASS (Atlantic Ten). Despite Chad Sherwood’s insistence on ignoring Davidson, which compelled me to always refer to them as “Good” Davidson, the Wildcats can improve to 12-3 on the year, 3-1 in league play, and take down a UMass team that’s 5-2 at home and probably won’t lose too many more.
-SOUTHERN ILLINOIS AT WICHITA STATE (Missouri Valley). It’s a conference game that will seem very much like a buy game. Very disappointed in SIU this year. They weren’t good last year, but they finished strong and had a lot of key players returning.
-XAVIER AT VILLANOVA (Big East). Xavier can beat top ten teams at home, but can’t beat the Boy Scouts on the road, or at least they haven’t so far. Going on the road and winning against a potential #1 seed caliber team would reverse that in a hurry, but it isn’t likely. On the flip side, if Nova wants a #1 seed, they need to win at home against a team that can’t beat the Boy Scouts on the road.
-IOWA STATE AT BAYLOR (Big Twelve). Both teams are ranked, good, and have good profiles. Having said that, to date this would still be one of the better wins on the profile of whichever team pulls this off.
-NEVADA AT COLORADO STATE (Mountain West). Colorado State has a bloated record, and has looked good in a lot of their games against decent teams. That means they may be a tournament team. If we’re measuring them as if they were a tournament team, they cannot afford to lose at home against a non-tournament team. Nevada is coming off a very feel-good win against rival UNLV, so they should come in rathe loose.
-ILLINOIS AT NORTHWESTERN (Big Ten). Illinois can’t make up their minds as to whether or not they’re actually any good.
-STANFORD AT CALIFORNIA (Pac Twelve). It’s a conference game. It’s a bitter rivalry. It’s a game between two teams that are on the bubble and need notable wins. Nothing else needs to be said.