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.

One-Bid League Reality Check

I like to stand by my preseason call as long as possible.  Some of these calls, such as Howard in the MEAC, were flawed from the start.  Other calls, such as Liberty in the Big South, were sabotaged by injury or circumstance.  Sometimes you tried to ride a darkhorse, like Bryant, who just does not have the talent to emerge.  And finally, sometimes you think you really understand a team and its ability to deploy a tactic upon lesser competition, only you were dead wrong, as in the case the case of my Horizon picks.

First, preseason to league play, I maintained 25 of 32 projected winners.  Better than 75% isn’t bad, but there is still work to be done.  Also, it warrants mentioning that for the for the “surely auto-bid” leagues, we are selecting who is most likely to make the field, not necessarily who is going to have the best league win percentages.

Conferences that I definitely need to amend:

Northeast

America East

Southland

MAC

Conferences that will not fall my way, but intend to stick with my call to upset the tourney:

Summit

Patriot

Big West

Conferences way too close to call:

Sun Belt

Southern

Ivy

Big South (Liberty, back from the dead!)

Northeast

Let me disclose- this is an awful conference this year.  I rolled the dice with Bryant early, flopped to Robert Morris, but now it impossible to decide.  I love a local pick in Mount St. Mary’s, but not so sure they can sustain their run trotting out a bunch of mites.  FDU has warts, and LIU just dumped to a very weak CCSU team.  Nobody has shown that they can compete at the “Field of 68” level, but we will reward the Mountaineers for their consistency that will lead them through the NEC.

America East

Straight up, Vermont may be one of the 68 best teams in the country.  Seriously, you wouldn’t take them in your bracket over the bottom 10 SEC teams?  I originally, and still, wanted New Hampshire to put it all together because they have never been anywhere near the postseason before.  Nobody in this league has the ability to solve Vermont’s attack.  UMBC may be able to push the pace, but they won’t get the stops.  The Cats also live around the rim, so they are less prone to a cold shooting night.

Southland

It doesn’t look like the “Community College” turning it around soon enough.  There is still a lot to like there, but the results aren’t happening.  The Jacks are near the top of the standings, but the kenpom numbers tell another story.  New Orleans has come out of nowhere, but I’m leaning toward the Bearkats.  After a slow start, they have won 7 in a row, including at New Orleans.  Both teams are poor shooting and loose with the ball, but I expect the Privateers to regress (two OT wins).

Mid-American

Akron is one of the few teams enjoying success maintaining a slow tempo when the game has opened up to “embrace the pace”.  This is the slowest team Keith Dambrot has put on the floor at Akron, but they work to exploit the 3-point shot, and make just enough to be dangerous.  Outside of a sloppy start against Youngstown State, they have beaten everyone they were supposed to beat.  They still have Ohio and EMU on the road that could expose a flaw, but I expect them to coast through.

Fun stat: Since reaching the Final Four in 2007, the Georgetown Hoyas have been knocked out of the NCAA tourney 6 straight times by lower seeds.  It will be interesting to see if JT3 gets a chance to extend that streak, because it will not be this year.

Updates: Patriot and Northeast Leagues

Patriot League

Summary: I think that it would be unfair to write off sucks to BU after just beating Lehigh, but I do not think they are going to finish in the same class as the Hawks or Bison.  Both Lehigh and Bucknell own Top 100 wins and played fair schedules.  I would say Lehigh has been a little less consistent, but they can shoot the lights out when they need to.  Tim Kempton is the best player in the conference.  It should be enough to ride to a 14/15 seed.  Bucknell has gotten much improved performance across the board and don’t have too many weaknesses.

What I got wrong: Bucknell, obviously. Colgate and American have been really bad.  There are no injury excuses here either, just teams that lack fundamentals. This does not bode well for Mike Brennan as his programs nosedives from the Jeff Jones days.  Lafayette wasn’t expected to be good, but also not this bad either.  Army, on the other hand, has been sneaky decent so far.  Sure, they just dropped games to the conference heavyweights, but held their own against 5 Top100 teams (winning zero).  If not for that brutal loss to Central Arkansas, this would be a great start.

Prognosis: Lehigh and Bucknell all the way.  Holy Cross joins BU and Army as the other .500+ clubs that could wreak havoc come tourney time.  I don’t see much else from the bottom half.

PAT Preseason Realtime 1 Lehigh Lehigh 2 Boston University Bucknell 3 Colgate Boston University 4 American Army 5 Bucknell Holy Cross 6 Holy Cross Navy 7 Lafayette Colgate 8 Navy Loyola 9 Loyola American 10 Army Lafayette

Northeast

Summary: Not a lot of signature performances this non-conference slate.  Wagner upset UConn then took the rest of the semester off.  Bob Morris has avoided getting blown out, but can put teams away either. Some people are high on Fairleigh Dickinson, but they cannot stop anyone and are a fluky NCAA run last year away from having been a perennial dumpster fire.  Bryant did this.  Mount Saint Mary’s stole an early one from a sleepy George Mason team, but hasn’t done anything.

What I got wrong: Bryant is a very talented freshmen-based team.  They have the most talented player in the conference.  They are not Kentucky though, so the early going was rough.  Other than that, this was pretty close, with the bottom four playing to form.

Prognosis: I still like Bryant, but there is no way they are winning this league.  The Seahawks are the only team capable of pulling a real upset, but these are 17 seed caliber teams.  I expect Robert Morris to win the regular season title, but Bryant and Wagner are playing for the bid. 

NE Preseason Realtime 1 Bryant Robert Morris 2 Wagner Wagner 3 Fairleigh Dickinson Long Island 4 Robert Morris Bryant 5 Long Island Mount Saint Mary's 6 Sacred Heart Fairleigh Dickinson 7 Mount Saint Mary's Sacred Heart 8 Saint Francis, NY Saint Francis, NY 9 Saint Francis, PA Saint Francis, PA 10 Central Connecticut State Central Connecticut State

2017 Predictions: Small Conferences

The way I am building my bracket is maintain a tracker of each conference, top to bottom.  "Wow, that sounds like a lot of work."  Well so is playing basketball!

I strongly feel that much of my "expert" analysis come from understanding what is happening on the court, sometimes moreso than the players, coaches, and broadcast teams... actually, especially the broadcast teams.  With these teams, it is that much more difficult because despite dozens more coverage options, they are rarely on TV.  It's not like I can just roll on over to Bender Arena and catch a game any time, as my wife and kids would change the locks.

I have captured the screen shot so I can look back and compare results, as well as track standings, hot teams, and use this to populate the bracket.



These are clearly all one bid leagues that will typically have a great deal of entropy transitioning from non-conference to conference schedules, so it will be interesting to see who lives up to their billing.

What I am pretty sure of:
Long Beach State looks to be the class of the Big West, with recent losses at Irvine and Hawaii.  I can't imagine them losing more than 3 conference games.

Bryant will rebound in a big way.  The Northeast isn't very strong, which allowed a suspect Fairleigh Dickinson team to sneak through last year.

Stephen F. Austin will lose games in conference this year.  That hasn't always been a given, dropping a 53-1 spot the last 3 years... 12-6 looks about right, but could fall further if the new staff and team don't click right away.

Howard is a pick and roll away from being a dominant force in the MEAC, but right now rely too much on their guards' ability to get to the rim.  That ability is a great equalizer, but can be easy to stop when the calls are not going your way.

Not picking on any doormats either, but there will be some rough transition seasons out there.