Monday Lay-up Lines

Clearly, the game of the night is the first Big East conference game of the season as Georgetown heads to Hartford to take on UConn. Georgetown's bigs pose all sorts of problems for the Huskies. As Gonzaga proved, UConn is going to have the most trouble against a team that has post players that can play on the perimeter. Both Greg Monroe and DaJuan Summers can do that. It is going to be so important for Hasheem Thabeet to stay out of foul trouble when he is guarding (most likely) Monroe. With Stanley Robinson back, the Huskies have the personal to go smaller (putting Sticks at the four) to match-up with Georgetown, but I doubt that they will do that - it would take away from their advantage in the paint.

I would expect the Hoyas to come out in a zone, which means that two things. The most important is whether or not Georgetown will be able to keep UConn off of the offensive glass. It was a problem against Memphis, another team the Hoyas went zone against. It also means that UConn is going to have to be aggressive on the perimeter. The Huskies always seem to get bogged down against a zone, but if they want to win they need to move the ball around to get the zone moving, and then attack gaps from the perimeter. AJ Price's penetration against the Gonzaga zone is what brought UConn back.

There are some other good games on tonight as well:

• 7:00 PM: Central Michigan (3-8) @ Kentucky (10-3)
• 7:00 PM: North Carolina Central (0-14) @ Michigan (9-2)
• 7:00 PM: Temple (5-5) @ Villanova (11-1): Temple has a win over Tennessee, but has otherwise been a bit disappointing this year. Villanova is ranked in the top 25, but has yet to really play like a top 25 team.
• 7:00 PM: Boston University @ Cornell: Two of the better low-majors teams. Cornell is almost back to a full roster as their all-everything PG Louis Dale finally seems to be back to 100%.
• 7:30 PM: Louisiana-Lafeyette (4-6) @ Tennessee (8-2)
• 8:00 PM: Portland State (10-3) @ Baylor (10-1)
• 8:30 PM: Weber State (6-6) @ Arizona (8-3)
• 9:00 PM: Central Connecticut (5-5) @ Arizona State (10-1)
• 9:00 PM: Cincinnati (10-2) @ Memphis (7-3): Memphis has struggled this year and could really use a win over a decent Cincinnati team. The Bearcats are 10-2 and talented, but still are looking for a marquee win on their resume. A win over the Tigers in Memphis would put Cinci in great position heading into Big East play.
• 9:00 PM: Davidson (8-2) @ Charleston (10-1): Charleston might be the team to overtake Davidson atop the Southern Conference.