Game of the night recap (a day late...)
Buena Vista 86, Emerson 75
Buena Vista held Emerson to 33 percent shooting in the first half to open a double-digit halftime lead in this battle of undefeated programs. BV also forced 22 turnovers from Emerson in the contest. Elsewhere, Vassar came up huge in the second half to knock off top-ranked Rivier by an 87-82 final. Greensboro topped US Merchant Marines 72-62.
Off-day analysis
Here on the "dead day," I'll pay tribute to the ELEVEN (!!) undefeated programs to survive unscathed and arrive at conference play with 10-0 records. Nice non-conference work to Buena Vista (westcoast22), Defiance (carl3298), Howard Payne (aggiegeog), Johnson & Wales (spasticity), Martin Luther (albatross1), Tufts (zmark513), LeTourneau (SimAI), UMass, Dartmouth (docwooden), Illinois Wesleyan (unlikelyhero), McMurry (SimAI) and Trinity (CT) (SimAI). Three of the teams on that list are from the American Southwest Conference -- do we have a new Evil Empire? The CCIW and NESCAC are also double-represented on the list of undefeated teams, meaning that, at most, seven schools will reach the end of conference play with perfect records.
At the other end of the spectrum are 10 schools still in search of their first victory, two of which are human coaches (identities withheld to protect the guilty...). The Capital, Little East and Wisconsin are each saddled with two of the winless programs.
Game of the night
Ozarks (9-1) at #6 Millsaps (9-1)
Not a lot of exciting-looking conference games between two human opponents tonight, but I'll grab this one that features two 9-1 coaches, one of whom isn't receiving any rankings love, as my game of the night. Vegas has the line set at 8 points, close enough that spike101 can entertain thoughts of posting his first-ever win over brianxavier and Millsaps. #22 Newbury at #25 Emmanuel is the only all-top 25 encounter on the books for tonight.