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The Mountain West and Missouri Valley have long stood as two of the better mid-major basketball conferences in the country, so it stands to reason that a meeting between the two teams picked to finish second in each conference–San Diego State and Illinois State–makes for a very compelling matchup.
That’s exactly what we get on Saturday, as the Redbirds welcome the Aztecs for what is one of the more underrated games of the day.
The game is scheduled to start at 3 p.m. ET. While it won’t be broadcast nationally on television anywhere in the US, you can still watch a live stream of the game on your computer, phone or streaming device via ESPN+, the new digital streaming service from ESPN that broadcasts dozens of college basketball games every week.
You can sign up for a free 7-day trial of ESPN+ right here, and you can then watch a live stream of the game on your computer via ESPN.com, or on your phone, tablet or streaming device via the ESPN app.
If you can’t watch live, all games–including San Diego State vs Illinois State–that are streamed on ESPN+ are also available to be watched afterwards on-demand via ESPN.com or the ESPN app.
Preview
Picked in the preseason as the biggest challenger to last year’s Final Four squad Loyola Chicago in the MVC, Illinois State is living up to those expectations early in the season.
Though the Redbirds have picked up losses to Belmont and Georgia, they’ve also tallied a handful of solid wins against Akron, Boise State and BYU. The latter, which happened Wednesday, was certainly the most impressive victory of the season for Dan Muller’s squad, as they erased a 14-point second-half deficit and ultimately pulled out the 92-89 overtime victory.
Milik Yarbrough, last year’s MVC Newcomer of the Year, is the star due to his ability to fill up the box score (17.0 points, 8.3 rebounds, 4.1 assists per game), but this team’s strength is in its balance and experience. In the win over BYU, five Redbirds scored at least 15 points–and all of them were juniors or seniors.
They’re ranked just 128th nationally in Ken Pomeroy’s ratings, but make no mistake about it, this team is legit. The win over BYU (66th) solidified that.
San Diego State, meanwhile, sits at 4-2, which isn’t all that surprising considering the stacked field they faced as the Maui Invitational. They were run out of the gym by two very good teams in Duke and Iowa State, but they also mixed in a five-point win over Xavier.
The Aztecs have a bit more youth on their side, as three of their top four scorers–Jalen McDaniels, Matt Mitchell and Jordan Schakel–are sophomores. Still, they nevertheless grade out as a better team than Illinois State on both sides of the ball, ranking 71st and 86th in adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency (per Pomeroy), compared to 103rd and 160th, respectively, for the Redbirds.
But while the Aztecs are favored on the analytics side, a strong case could be made that Illinois State’s experience and home-court advance swings things back in their direction, especially after the win over BYU.
Either way, this feels like a toss-up. And if either of these teams are sweating out the bubble in March, we may look back on this one as a very important result.
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