What a weekend especially in the major conferences. There was so much movement in the standings, rankings, and most importantly on the bubble. Yesterday was a huge game in terms of bubble implications. Northwestern beat Michigan State. Minnesota beat Maryland and Penn State beat Michigan. Michigan is a mess and with each loss, the college basketball world gets closer to seeing Juwan Howard no longer be the coach at Michigan. The Howard experiment is no longer working, and the Wolverines are not playing very hard right now. Dayton beat UMass and in the most surprising result of the night Belmont beat Missouri Valley favorite Drake. Saint Peter’s moved to 4-0 in the MAAC.
Yesterday I went 15-3 in my picks which brings my 61 day total to 1,756-634 overall. The schedule over the weekend was loaded with a ton of games, upsets, and teams improving their resume’s so it would only make sense that today would be a catch your breath kind of day. There is Southland, CAA, MEAC, and SWAC conference games today. There is not a single power five team that plays today but they are still meaningful conference games for the teams involved. Picks for day 62 January 8, 2024, are below.
New Orleans over Texas A&M Commerce
Monmouth over Northeastern
Howard over South Carolina State
Morgan State over Delaware State
North Carolina Central over Norfolk State
Coppin State over Maryland Eastern Shore
McNeese over Northwestern State
Lamar over Incarnate Word
Texas A&M Corpus Christi over Houston Christian
Grambling over Texas Southern
Alabama State over Pine Bluff
Mississippi Valley State over Alabama A&M
Southern over Prairie View
There is not much on the slate today for the casual basketball fan. Only to college basketball junkies will find the diamond in the rough today as far as games go. The best and most competitive game of the day will be Southern and Prairie View. Southern has already beaten UNLV and Mississippi State and the Jaguars are the best team in the SWAC. Prairie View has two good wins over Eastern Kentucky and Abilene Christian and looks to be one of the better teams in the SWAC.
Outside of that it is a lot of low major conference games. McNeese plays and they are very fun to watch but their game likely won’t be competitive.