Recent Play Details

3% Southern (8:00 ET): We’re heading over to the extra games section of the board as Southern takes on Western Illinois. Why would we do such a thing? Well, this is a rare winnable game for Southern in the non-conference schedule. These SWAC teams always take it on the chin in the early portion of the season, playing a lot of road games against high-level competition. Already this season, the Jaguars have faced TCU, UNLV and Arizona. Being that they were underdogs of 20 or more in all three of those games, you’d expect Southern to come into Friday at 0-3 SU. But you’d be wrong. They upset UNLV 85-71 last week. 

This will be Southern’s fourth consecutive road game of the year and they’ve got four more to go (Illinois, Valpo, Marquette, Miss St) before finally playing a home game on 12/9 (vs. SE Louisiana). Tonight is, without question, the Jaguars’ best shot at picking up another win on this trip. They face a Western Illinois team that is 0-2 SU vs. D-I competition, losing to UTSA and SMU, before hammering St. Ambrose on Sunday. The market seems to agree with me that Southern is the better team here as there’s a good chance they’ll go off as the favorite by tipoff. 

There’s more questions than answers right now with this Western Illinois roster. A lot of guys are seeing minutes, not because of any kind of great depth, but HC Chad Boudreau is simply trying to figure out who to go with. There were a lot of key players lost from LY’s team and so far the Leathernecks rank 337th in offensive efficiency per KenPom. Southern will look to play fast (113th in adj tempo) and get to the rim. Right now, their offensive efficiency has been much better than Western Illinois and I think that leads to a win Friday night. 3% Southern (Play ML if favored)