2017-2018 Mid-Major Conference Previews

There is not a slight between these 8 conferences and the 8 referenced under “One-Bid” (coming soon) other than I feel that the 2-3 best teams in these conferences are more likely to be a factor on the bubble come February.

The Mountain West is still several seasons away from being a legitimate multi-bid threat again.  It’s a shame, because the old WAC was home to some of the nation’s most exciting basketball.  When the MWC broke away, they took the heart of the conference.  It has fought small battles of attrition to football, but it looks to be taking its toll.  New Mexico and UNLV have been staggering aimlessly for several seasons.  Wyoming, Fresno St and Utah St are consistently unable to break through. Nevada was a very fringy Bubble team last year (likely “Next Four Out” had they not claimed an auto bid). San Diego State could go either way.  I’ve never been a fan of the coaching coattails, but the word out is that Dutcher has been doing the grunt work here for much more of their run than I would have believed.  Eustachy has the Rams pointed in the right direction, but they are not deep at all.  The conference just doesn’t draw from the Big 12/PAC 12 reservoir the way it used to.

The Missouri Valley has reloaded about as well as it could from the Creighton and Wichita defections.  The conference had survived the losses of Tulsa, Cincinnati, Louisville before that.  The difference is that those are larger cities that have their own sports world.  Valpo falls into mould of the other schools (ISU, ISU, SIU, NIU, MSU), with great tradition, but not much happening in a small town to sell recruits on MVC over Big East, AAC, or even Big Ten.  The MVC needs a winner in Loyola to pipeline talent back into the conference.  The play deliberately, and with the Redbirds and Panthers struggling, there isn’t much resistance.  Bradley will be a shocker, as they have been left for dead for several seasons.  Not seeing much more than an auto bid here, unless somebody pulls together 30 wins.

Not much to say about the West Coast Conference.  Gonzaga reloaded, but St. Mary’s has the NBA talent this year, and should be able to take 2 of 3.  BYU will be exciting until Emery has a meltdown on the road and costs them a couple winnable games.  Too much turnover in the conference the last 2 years to generate many other threats.  Santa Clara is building a solid system and base, but they need way more talent to crack the top 3.

The CAA was a potential multi-bid league with UNCW and Charleston playing tight most of the way, but Charleston fizzled, now the Seahawks have graduated most of their diamonds in the rough.  Elon and Towson are competent enough to make a run. The Tribe lost some of their underrated talent that made Williamsburg a very difficult place to win the last few years.

The loss of Valpo from the Horizon makes this a very unappealing slate of teams.  The Norse are on the map in the wake of Alec Peters late season injury, but it is unlikely Oakland craps the bed again like they did last season.  The Phoenix never figured out how to score at that tempo, and that doesn’t figure to change this season.

The Ivy is a tale of 4 Haves and 4 Have Nots.  Any one of the top 4 can steal the auto bid, but I’m not sure anybody is going to catch the scheduling breaks to be at-large worthy.  Dartmouth, Brown, and Cornell are several steps down from the top four, and there is a pretty large break between the Tigers and Lions.  Princeton has lost the most from last year, though it still can run away with this.  My money would be on the FBS-level talent at Harvard, or the depth at Yale, but never rule out the ability of Penn to spread and shoot.

Monmouth’s stranglehold on the Little MAAC (though what’s it say about the MAC that they rate below here) is over with nary an NCAA bid.  Manhattan has assembled a formidable team.  Iona has been solid for years and are not going away, though Fairfield could be the sleeper here.  Also, never count Siena out in the MAAC tourney.

Conference USA is where things typically go to die, and there isn’t much coming out this year.  ODU will bore you to death, and both Charlotte and Marshall will ignore defensive obligations, making MTSU the favorite again.  UTEP and LaTech will win 20 games and be thorns in their side.  The most interesting pieces are North Texas and UTSA, both of whom can make an unexpected run up a weak conference… the Hilltoppers dream about what might have been, though the concern to me is how Stansbury lined that deal up.

Updates: Mountain West and West Coast

Finally, legitimate multi-bid leagues!

Mountain West

Summary: The wheels came off quickly for San Diego State, as the Aztecs blew several games in which they were the clear favorite.  They have never been great offensively under Fisher, but they have sunk into the “bad” to “really bad.”  Injuries are not an excuse here.  Outside a day one blowout to Saint Mary’s, Nevada has played to form and should get the necessary wins to be on the bubble for an 11 seed.  Boise State has the best win in conference over SMU, but need to take advantage of a gimpy Dillon Brooks as that would have looked great on the resume.  I am sticking to my guns that Colorado State is still a year away.  Craig Neal is probably Dead Man Walking in Albuquerque.  The bottom four in this conference have shaped up exactly as expected.

What I got wrong: Well, at least I didn’t have the Aztecs up top like everyone else, but I did expect them to back into the dance.  That probably will not happen.  After stealing a win from Nevada, Fresno State reverted to form by choking one down against lowly SJST.

Prognosis: It warrants mentioning that kenpom projects a single loss for SDST from here on out, so they could right the ship, but it is unlikely given the performance.  Nevada will clear the Broncos by a game or two in the standings.  Wyoming probably has the best shot of making a move out of the basement to the middle of the pack.  It is truly amazing how poorly this conference has shot thus far.

MWC	Preseason	Realtime
1	Nevada	Nevada
2	San Diego State	Boise State
3	New Mexico	San Diego State
4	Fresno State	Colorado State
5	Boise State	New Mexico
6	Utah State	Utah State
7	Colorado State	Fresno State
8	Air Force	Air Force
9	UNLV	UNLV
10	Wyoming	Wyoming
11	San Jose State	San Jose State

West Coast

Summary: It’s so hard to quantify the WCC.  Gonzaga is one of the top 8 teams in the country, and the Gaels are right behind them in the top 20.  Neither will be really tested except by each other, which if St. Mary’s cannot split, they will go into the WCC tourney with BS talk about how they can’t win the big ones.  Arlington is their only blemish, with wins over Nevada and Dayton, and they couldn’t have expected UAB and Stanford would end up mediocre wins.  BYU has done just enough to play themselves out of the tournament, but are so clearly the next best team that they just need to steal one or two out of five against the big guys to improve their profile.

What I got wrong: Pepperdine is terrible.  They started 4-1 with a suspect loss to Central Michigan, but then the wheels, in the form of Amadi Udenyi’s Achilles, came off in a hurry.  San Francisco is on the rise, but looking at .500.

Prognosis: These schools, in order to compete, must find a niche the way Randy Bennett has.  Right now, this conference is 3 horses competing for 2 spots, hoping to get a charge from Pepperdine (next season if Udenyi get a redshirt), Santa Clara, or San Francisco.  Loyola Marymount has spent 2 decades climbing back to mediocrity.  Gonzaga is almost guaranteed a 1 seed, and the Gaels are in the 4/5 range.  BYU is still hanging around the play in games, but will likely suffer the same fate as last season, running themselves straight to the NIT.

WCC	Preseason	Realtime
1	Gonzaga	Gonzaga
2	Saint Mary's	Saint Mary's
3	Pepperdine	Brigham Young
4	Brigham Young	San Francisco
5	Santa Clara	Santa Clara
6	Loyola Marymount	Loyola Marymount
7	San Francisco	Portland
8	San Diego	Pepperdine
9	Portland	San Diego
10	Pacific	Pacific

2017 Predictions: The Majors

Yes!  The “Major” conferences.  These are the bread and butter to forecasting a good bracket.  The powers that be make it impossible to properly rate the BCS conference teams, watching middling teams get way over-seeded or included, while strong teams from this group regularly get the shaft.  It frustrates me to no end when I am championing two potential Cinderella teams and they get pitted against each in the 7-10 game, all the while boasting the profile of a 4-5 seed.  Meanwhile, some pluck BCS bubble team sneaks into their conference semifinals and is suddenly anointed champion of the hour.

Most of you will probably get a chuckle out of the likes of Texas San Antonio playing in a major conference, or being put in the same breath as defending champion Villanova.  However, even the MAC and Conference USA have the talent to be multi-bid leagues with a couple breaks.

The Big East should continue to roll deeper than most of the BCS conferences.  Nova is still deep, Xavier keeps getting better, and Seton Hall has recovered from 2 decades of apathy in a basketball-first environment.  If Greg McDermott has turned the corner in Omaha, this conference really has 4 teams looking at top 4 seeds.  Early results show that Marquette, Butler and Providence should compete well despite personnel losses.  DePaul and Saint John’s will continue to suck… more on those teams in another post.

That also brings me to a point.  Very few of my preseason previews will mention specific players.  And isn’t that I don’t or don’t care.  25 years of college basketball obsession have proven a few things.  The first is that players win games.  Supremely talented shooters, ball-handlers, and big men make plays that affect the outcomes of games.  However, good coaching wins championships.  Somebody who is thinking 5 steps ahead to make sure he is getting the most of each position on floor night after night is the biggest difference between the NIT and NCAA tourney for many of these teams.  When it comes down to projecting standings, players come, go, get hurt, get suspended.  A good coach deals with it all and adjusts.  On the list of NCAA tournament winning coaches, there are very few “interlopers”.  Kevin Ollie has yet to prove himself (and say what you want about these guys’ ethics… discussion for another time), but Jim Harrick is the only one who stands out in the last 30 years as being “wtf, how did he win?”  Buying into a coach’s system, process and character goes further than guess which of these 3, 4, and 5 star recruits will pan out.

The Atlantic 10 is the sleeping giant.  Because of the lack of football exposure, every year people ask me, “where is Saint Bonaventure?”  Dayton is back and Archie Miller should get them much deeper into the tournament.  Davidson has made the adjustment from the Southern Conference and continue to find talent other major programs pass on. I keep waiting for Richmond to turn the corner, but something seems missing from his Princeton-style attack.  VCU will probably take a step back from elite to just really good.  Shaka Smart’s coattails are only so long, and eventually will run out.  The real wild cards are the other Rams (URI) and the Bonnies.  Both look ready to make some noise this year.  So many schools in this conference in great recruiting areas so it is hard to imagine them not fielding good teams.

In the AAC, Southern Methodist has broken my heart enough the last couple years.  Larry Brown’s name was enough to get people interested in the program after a history of ineptitude.  They should be a Sweet 16 team this year.  Cincinnati is not going away, but Memphis may… not sure I buy this Tubby Smith experiment.  This may only be a 2 bid league unless somebody emerges from the Houston/Tulsa/UConn/Temple bubble.

Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s have reloaded… Saint Mary’s was violently screwed on selection Sunday and have a chip on their shoulder.  BYU always looks great on the court, then you blink and they have 9 losses.  Pepperdine may have the horse to sneak past them in the standings, but not enough to threaten the Top Dogs.  Santa Clara will slow it down this year and be a dark horse by the end of the season.

UNLV is a hot mess right now and I can’t that getting fixed before February.  Nevada has the depth to push ahead of San Diego State, and both are solid at-large teams.  Picking 3 through 7 here is a crapshoot, but New Mexico boasts the best home court advantage that will play out in the regular season.  There is a lot of talent in this conference, and is a year away from maybe getting 4-5 teams in.

Conference USA is full of teams that seem to covet the glory of major conference football, but have so little pedigree nobody is buying in yet.  MTSU is the best of the bunch, but the Monarchs and Blazers bring some tourney experience to the table.  Marshall and Charlotte will push the pace all season long, but neither are equipped to win regularly on the road (shoot, play D).

The MVC misses Creighton.  Northern Iowa is trying to play foil to the Shockers’ dominance, but after that the cupboard is pretty bare.  Barry Hinson looks to have SIU on the right track, and Illinois State is a solid 20 win team, but the lack of depth will keep this conference low in the RPI discussion, and anyone not named Gregg Marshall should expect to be forced to win Arch Madness to secure a bid in the Dance.

Buffalo (the house Reggie Witherspoon built) has been solid for the last 5+ years, but the test will be whether it can be sustained. Ohio and Toledo are fortunately n opposite sides of the conference as to not cannibalize each other.  Keno Davis will bring some excitement to Central Michigan.  The conference will need a few signature wins early to get into the 2 bid discussion.