Wichita State, at home in the Koch Arena, is the play tonight when the Shockers host the Indiana State Sycamores.
The Missouri Valley Conference has been for suckers so far this year. Too many teams hyped-up to be better than they are, too much parity among lackluster mid-majors, and too many weird outcomes.
Creighton, Missouri St., Northern Iowa, Wichita St....these were all, at one time or another, sleepers for the Sweet 16 one year after George Mason's miracle run. But each has suffered ignominy, losing games both home and away that they shouldn't have lost. But Thursday night features one contest that caught my eye: Indiana St. traveling to Wichita to play the Shockers.
Now, Wichita St. has been a disappointment this year; they're just 6-7 in the MVC after toppling LSU and Syracuse early in the season. They looked just terrible on Saturday, scoring a miserable 46 points in a home loss to Southern Illinois. They almost certainly aren't dancing this March.
But if they're ever going to wake up, Thursday's the night.
Indiana St. is really the team that started the Shockers' free-fall, when they stunned WSU on the January 10, 68-63. Since then, however, the Sycamores are 1-7 straight up, and have lost by some huge margins in that span; this just in: they're not very good. Best of all, Indiana St. just pulled out a huge emotional streak-busting win at home against Northern Iowa on Monday. So this is a home revenge game for the Shockers, and a letdown game for ISU.
Also, to be successful so far this year, Wichita St. has really needed to get on the offensive glass; the Sycamores are a relatively dreadful defensive rebounding team, so whatever shooting woes WSU suffers through should get covered up on the boards.
It's never fun laying double-digit odds, but this is a case where I think the line is five or six points too low. The Shockers have a stake in this game, and they really should be the much better team.
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Brian Gabrielle: Shockers -11½ vs Sycamores
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