Early is out for Tenn Chatt. He scored 12 in first game. Chatt may be down to possibly 6 players. That is why line is so high. Brookings doubtful for Siena. Here is pasted write-up on W, Carolina game:
It's the most important game yet in Western Carolina's season, but settling on a date for it has been as tricky as trying to defend Harouna Mutombo's elusive drives to the basket.
Barring any last-minute technicalities or additional flu epidemics, WCU will now host first-place but illness-plagued Chattanooga at 7 tonight.
Originally scheduled for Thursday night, the men's basketball contest was initially moved to Valentine's Day after injury, a suspension and the flu whittled the Mocs' roster to five available players Wednesday.
WCU coach Larry Hunter said Thursday that after considering his team's remaining schedule, he determined tonight would be a better alternative, even though his Cats must turn around and host Samford Saturday afternoon.
That game against Samford has been pushed back an hour to 3 p.m.
“As we got to looking at the last two weeks of our season, for us to move the game to Monday would make us play seven games in 15 days just prior to going into the conference tournament,” said Hunter, who said he'd never had a game this important postponed because of illness in his 31 years as a head coach.
“The way it is now, we have five games in 10 days, which is an awfully tough way to end the season,” Hunter added. “If we stub our toe and don't get a bye, we might have to play four games at the tournament. I just did not think that was fair to our basketball players, and (WCU athletic director) Chip (Smith) agreed, and so did Chattanooga.”
The Mocs (14-11, 10-3) lead WCU (11-13, 7-5) by two games in the SoCon's North Division, but they've got a tough road to stay atop the standings.
Chattanooga coach John Shulman said as of Thursday evening, he had six players healthy and available to play – including just two regular starters. That doesn't include leading scorer Omar Wattad (15.4 ppg) and point guard Keegan Bell (9.3 ppg, league-best 6.3 apg), who've been struck by the flu and would certainly not be at 100 percent even if cleared to make the trip.
“There's really not a good answer for it,” Shulman said of the scheduling dilemma. “No solution was going to be perfect for everybody. They definitely helped us for one night, and I really appreciate that. We've just got to be ready to roll. Right now we've got six bodies. We may have more. It just depends on what the doctor says at noon (today).”
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