Small Conferences

OK, my honest bad... the Sun Belt has no business being lumped in here, but they fall at the end of the alphabet and I forgot them.

That being said... this looks like the "New Valley"... the mid major that is growing competent basketball programs and finding new player pipelines.  Scott Cross has UT Arlington humming, Troy is sharp, GSU and GSU are winning talent over their BCS counterparts.  The bottom of the conference has fallen mightily, as it seems just yesterday Little Rock was rocking Purdue.

Liberty was killed by injury last year, but should be back to top Asheville and Winthrop.

The Big West was maddeningly mediocre last season.  Long Beach looked like they blew an easy slate, but it turns out that they are not very good.  Reggie Theus is probably missing the days of easy recruiting and homecourt advantage in Las Cruces; Northridge isn't getting much better this season. Davis will slide back to the field after last year's run.  I expect Hawaii to pull it together for a run after having to sit last year out.

The Northeast Conference is a total wild card.  St. Francis PA looks the deepest, but I could see any of the top 8 sneaking into Dayton and making some noise.

Florida Gulf Coast is so much deeper and more prepared than the rest of this conference it is not even funny.  In other seasons, I would give Lipscomb some hope, but I'd expect FGCU to nearly run the table.

The Southland is balanced.

MEAC is much stronger than the SWAC this year... the SWAC is really struggling right now, both on and off the court, but Mike Davis at least seems to have Texas Southern competing at the level of the other small conferences.  The top 4 in the MEAC look OK.