Illinois State vs. Houston Baptist, 5:00pm CT...
Houston Baptist (RPI 329) is new to D-I but they haven't shied away from playing the big boys...
not that I am counting ISU as a big boy, but Houston Baptist has also played at Marquette, where they got drummed by 31, but last night they got hammered at Villanova by 36, 93-57.
They also have Ohio State, Iowa State, and Wyoming coming up...
Thus far they are winless, 0-7, so are there any takers if we decided
to bet on whether they will actually win a game this season??
They play some pretty substantial weaklings this season...so maybe they can eke out a win in one of their two games
against New Jersey Institute of Technology, or maybe they can get that elusive first D-I win against the famous "SW Assemblies of God" on Feb. 26.
BTW--NJIT is on a pretty major STREAK...
they were 0-29 last season (and dead last at 341 RPI), and so far this season they are 0-6 (330 RPI), PLUS they lost their final 4 games of a 5-24 season in 2006-2007 as well.
So....they have now lost 39 games in a row......
this is an embarassment, and I think the NCAA should tell them to get lost and drop back to DII or DIII where they belong...and maybe replace them with Platteville.
One more thing....NJIT's HOME ATTENDANCE the past four seasons??
2005-2006 - 110
2006-2007 - 482
2007-2008 - 596
2008-2009 - 509
plus, Platteville averages about 1000 per home game, better than a lot of D-I's