Ball State at Georgia Southern

Ball State went 12-19 last season and finished 7-11 in the MAC for the third straight year. It closed on a four-game winning streak and still missed the conference tournament on a tiebreaker. Michael Lewis was fired the day after the finale. Only two players from that roster stayed through the coaching change, and Chris Capko, hired March 20, opens his first regular season as a head coach. Ball State also starts without two of its transfers, and one of them is academically ineligible until about December 8. Georgia Southern went 8-10 in the Sun Belt a year ago and turned over 11 roster spots, four of them first-year players. Dallas Gardner, a second-team preseason All-Sun Belt pick, is back after missing all of last season to injury. That puts a preseason all-conference name on Georgia Southern's roster in a game where the Cardinals' rotation is still being sorted out. I make Georgia Southern the right side on the spread tonight, with Ball State's first-time head coach, two holdovers, and two unavailable transfers all showing up in the same opener.