Future OOC Opponents

AT A GLANCE
(Record is vs. D1 opponents only. RPI is according to RealTimeRPI. Only D1 opponents are included at this time.)

Murray State 3-4, RPI: 74
Georgia State (potential Dr Pepper Classic opponent) 3-3, RPI: 254
Texas A&M- Corpus Christi (potential Dr Pepper Classic Opponent) 1-6, RPI: 161
Austin Peay 5-5, RPI: 163
Georgia Tech 4-4, RPI:164

IN DEPTH LOOK

Murray State: The Racers losses have not been particularly bad- Ole Miss, UNLV, Oklahoma State, and Morehead State. They have beaten ETSU, Stanford, and Eastern Kentucky. They do not have another Top 100 team left on the schedule. Also, they beat the much-mentioned Reinhardt by fourteen points. For all the positive press that Murray State got in the preseason, the odds are that they will not get into the NCAA Tournament without winning the OVC Tournament. They don't have the quality wins, and they lost a conference game. Still, if they win out, the Racers may have a shot at an at large. This would be a quality win for the Mocs- no question.

Georgia State: Georgia State has played just one Top 100 team. Hampton beat them by four in that game. Two wins are over Troy and Utah Valley State who are ranked over 298. The best win is over James Madison who is ranked 120. There is also a nine point home loss to Samford from the SoCon. However, the win over James Madison is a conference win. VCU, Delaware, Old Dominion, UNC-Wilmington, and Drexel are all future opponents in the CAA who are ranked in the Top 100 currently. This team is going to have a very difficult time in the very tough CAA.

Texas A&M-Corpus Christi: TAMU-CC has played only two teams not ranked in the Top 100. One was Bethune-Cookman, their lone win against a D1 team so far this year. The other was a loss to Marquette, a Big East team. That was a 36 point blowout loss, and there is also the 41 point loss to Kansas. Of course, the Mocs have little room to say anything on this front. There is also a ten point loss to Oklahoma State and a 21 point loss to Texas A&M. Texas Tech is still ahead, along with Top 100 teams SE Louisiana and Sam Houston State.

Austin Peay: The Governors lost to Purdue, Oakland, and twice to Lipscomb- those are the only Top 100 teams on their schedule. They have two games coming up against Murray State still as another Top 100 opponent. Given that the Mocs have already played Austin Peay once and will play them again, the better the Governors play, the better it is for the Mocs.

Georgia Tech: The Yellow Jackets have been wildly erratic. They lost to Kennesaw State in their second game- a team that hasn't won a game since then and has an RPI of 300. However, they only lost to Syracuse (an RPI of 10) and Georgia (an RPI of 47) by a combined total of five points. They got beat by 20 by Northwestern. Wins have come over Charleston Southern, Albany, Niagara, and UTEP- all teams with an RPI over 200. Not good. Can the Mocs pull an upset on the road against an ACC team? It's possible.

THE DR PEPPER CLASSIC

Who is the better opponent for the Mocs to play? Would they rather play Texas A&M-Corpus Christi or Georgia State? Georgia State currently has the better record but the much worse RPI, due to the softer schedule. In the end, though, GSU's schedule will be much tougher, but their record may be much worse. So it's hard to know exactly what helps the Mocs the most. Obviously, the Mocs need a win. But I'd prefer that they get that win against the best possible team. So I am rooting for the Mocs to be playing the better of the two teams. I just don't know which one that is. I think at this point, we should assume that the team that wins is the better team and that is what we are rooting for.

So if you have tickets to that Dr Pepper Classic game, sit back and enjoy the game. Root for the team that impresses you the most.

GO MOCS!