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Sunday, January 13th Highlighted Match-ups

Sunday, January 13th Highlighted Match-ups
Jan 13, 2008, 02:21 am
-ALABAMA AT ARKANSAS (SEC). Alabama has been somewhat disappointing this year and needs to start winning some big games soon because they have a lot of work to do. Arkansas struggled on the road against Auburn more than I expected they would the other night, but still managed a win. At the very least, this will give them another conference win and a nice RPI jump if they’re able to pull it off. A loss would probably knock them down a bit.

-VIRGINIA AT DUKE (ACC). This is Virginia’s first game since being blown to bits by Xavier. They are once again on the road, and once again it’s against a tough opponent. North Carolina seems to be stealing all the thunder now, but Duke has shown that they’re good enough to compete for the ACC title as well. With first/second round games in Raleigh, and a regional in Charlotte, there is a pretty big prize for either Duke or North Carolina if they can finish first in the conference standings, so every game is big. As for Virginia, a first round spot in DC would be nice, and the better they play during the season the more likely they are to be placed there.

-ILLINOIS AT INDIANA (Big Ten). This is one of the bigger conference rivalries in the Big Ten, but when you look at how poorly Illinois has played lately it’s hard to get overly excited about this one. Indiana has just one loss on the year, but things will be getting tougher now that they’re in conference play…at least they should get tougher eventually. I don’t think they’ll have too much trouble today. It’s getting to the point to where a loss to Illinois will look bad to the committee rather than a win over them looking good.

-STANFORD AT OREGON (Pac Ten). Oregon went through a slump, but appears to have come out of it over the past week. Both of these teams look solid, but real estate in the top half of the Pac Ten standings is not going to be easy to come by, which makes conference games like this so important. Stanford had no problems putting away Oregon State, but they need to win some big games in conference to solidify their resume. The same can be said about Oregon.

-DUQUESNE AT RHODE ISLAND (Atlantic Ten). Duquesne has a good record and is off to one of their best starts in awhile, but then again they have been one of the worst teams in div1 for awhile. They are 11-3, but none of those wins are really outstanding. If they pull this off, though, it would be. Rhode Island is coming off a loss to Dayton on the road where both teams shot the lights out. They don’t want to drop this game as well and fall to 0-2 in the conference.

-LOUISVILLE AT RUTGERS (Big East). Louisville has won their last two games and looked pretty impressive doing it. With Padgett and Palacios back, they now have a full, nine-man rotation and will likely turn out to be a dangerous team in the Big East, and eventually build up a rather impressive tourney resume. Rutgers can be a tough place to play, but Louisville should be up to the challenge and be able to improve to 2-1 in league play.

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