by Matt Harrington

PALO ALTO–For any team to wrap up their season participating in the NIT semi finals is a great start and on Tuesday that’s what the Old Dominion Monarchs (27-7) will face the Stanford Cardinal (22-13). This is an exciting opportunity for both of these teams to continue on with their basketball playing and doing it in a historic venue and get a trip to New York and play at Madison Square Garden instead of staying on campus it’s a great advantage for both of these schools.

The Cardinal put together a late little run after receiving unfortunate news that they will not be going to the NCAA Tournament and you look at the games that they recently played. The game against Vanderbilt last Tuesday where they won it by just three 78-75. The game against Rhode Island with a 74-65 victory where the Cardinal just ran away with it.

The Cardinal played with some dominance in these post season games, the same can’t be said for Old Dominion who in their last game took a buzzer beating three to beat Murray State 72-69. So it’s a tale of two contrasting schools that enter into this match up for Tuesday night. The Cardinal face a team the Monarchs who have really been dominate their coming off a three game win streak.

There’s no taking anything away from Old Dominion because they beat Murray State everyone in their mother was saying along with the folks in the NCAA Tournament that that game was going down to the wire. This was one team that many thought was snubbed in the big tournament and the faithful at Old Dominion. It’s going to be a very good tournament with two very good teams going into this game.

The Cardinal have the edge and maybe confidence in knowing they owned a couple of teams, the Monarchs have this old swagger to them you get when they get further. They have that confidence of those USA mid major teams thinking they have a chance to knock off one of the big boys one of those Pac 12 teams. Stanford has a big tournament getting right back into this game this is going to be a big chance for Old Dominion to come out swinging.

This is where Stanford head coach Johnny Dawkins looks forward to another October or maybe not that long and it should be mid season where the players are playing up to their capability. Just looking at the score from last game the Cardinal’s Marcus Allen almost scored ten points. Earlier in the season he wasn’t even a factor necessarily, Reid Travis is getting into rhythm with six points off the bench. So there are a number of surprises that the Cardinal have and they should be out there in force on Tuesday night against Old Dominion for this semi final.

Matt Harrington is covering Stanford basketball for the NIT Semi Finals with Daniel Dullum on game night coverage for http://www.sportsradioservice.com catch the Stanford podcast below