#459: Mid Major Extravaganza

(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to the Three Man Weave College basketball podcast. The boys are back at it again, and I'm back for the first time, and gosh, it feels like a month. You fell as a nice two-man episode last week. I'm Kai, by the way. Hi. And I'm excited to get back into the swing of things with one of the best episodes of the year for us, one of our favorites, "The Midmajor Extravaganza." Matthew, are you excited about it? Matt, you are muted. Ah, good start. Very first line of the pod. - I'm so excited, I forgot to unmute myself. I'm not as excited as I was to see you yesterday, Kai. It's been a while since I've been out in the wild. - Yeah. - Yeah. - As I looked at myself in the Zoom machine, that's some sun it looks like, so. - Hey, your cheeks are rosier than me. - Yeah, a little rosier. Jim, you seem to have protected yourself in a year out in the sun this weekend, so props to you for taking the proper precautions. I did not do that, so shame on me. - I tried to. It was very overcast, but we fought through, we battled. I was on a bachelor party this weekend, it's Sunday night, but Kai, no topic would get me more excited for a Sunday pod, well, maybe vaguely hung over than the Midmajor Extravaganza. It was fun, combing through 22 leagues and getting ready to give us as deep of a summer as we can in like three minutes. That's kind of the cap schools we aim for. - Yes, as Jim alluded to, that is the theme of the episode. Midmajor Extravaganza dives into the Midmajors and the lowmajors in college basketball. We're gonna touch on 22 leagues. The other leagues will have their own episode this season, little preview episodes. And we're gonna go through some favorites, some dark horses, some bigger storylines. Really anything we wanna touch on and the fellows will toss it around and we'll talk leagues. If you're a gambler out there, there are some futures available in some of these conferences already. So hey, maybe this will help you out, maybe it'll help you make a decision or two. Good luck if you decide to do that. Before we get into the show, a shout out to Jay Pitty, who does our music, three MW underscore CDBs, where you can find us on Instagram and Twitter, subscribe to the YouTube channel. We're live right now, 7 p.m. Central time on a Sunday, three men weave YouTube. Just check it out. I think you can just search it and you'll find us. Do join us live if you wanna see us. If you also wanna, excuse me, wanna watch it later on at your leisure, go ahead. Jay, am I used to leisure instead of leisure? It's a British term. Yeah, it really got me thrown off, Kai. - Yeah, I hate it, I hate it. - I hate it when someone in London. - For I was like wow, I traveled across the pond. - I speak the kings, I speak the kings. And then finally, Trilly Downham's Discord, the burner discord, AK basketball review. That is where you can find us throughout the entire season, basketballinterview.com. There's also a link in the description of the video to the Discord itself. You can be a member of the Discord and get full access to the site with a bunch of talented writers, including our previews and a bunch of other stuff on there. $10 a month, we think it's very worth it. We think it's a great community. And it's all college basketball, fandom to the extreme. It's a wonderful place to be. We encourage you to check it out. Fellowes, are you ready to go? Are you ready to get your roots round up for some news and notes? - Couldn't be more ready. - The most stupid. - Let's see what the roots round up we've possibly ever had. - No, I can't. - Okay. - It's mid-August, we sleep in mid-August. But before we do, Matthew a quick shout out to CBB Analytics, where as I often do, reveal the random CBONX tab I have open at the time. And it is currently JoJo Wallace, a division two player from Southern New Hampshire, who is transferring up to division one, happened to be a tab I was on while researching for this very podcast. So, not just writing that it's useful for Matt, CBB Analytics covers it all. D2, D1 helps us out with all of that. - I'd say if there's an episode all year that this is the most pertinent plug for with all of the D2, D3 influx into mid-major and low-majordom. No better time. No better spot in the spectrum of college basketball to sign up for, then CBB Analytics.com, the holy grail of college basketball statistics. We love their heat maps. We love all the contextualized stats and Nick and team continue to roll out more and more stats as I teased earlier. It will have more context hopefully soon. Some very fun in-game live box score. Stop you to have up as a sort of a better alternative to maybe be frustrating a box score or score apps. And I'm sure we've all been numb to the last few years as we try and find the best out there. So, it's time to use our promo code lead that's W-E-A-V-E for four years off your subscription. Thank you to Nick and team at CBBanalytics.com. - Jim, well said Matthew. Well said. Okay, the only key headline I really have in our roots roundup. Obviously, there's ongoing litigation and fraud. So, you can tune in on that, but it's not anything super updated. But I want to give a shout out to the field of 68s, 24 hour marathon has returned shout out to field of 68. This is a treasure of college basketball. It's always a, or used to be a sign of the season kicking off. And they have brought it back, tip off marathon, starting with four games in Rock Hill, South Carolina, then two games in Sioux Falls and two more back in Rock Hill. So, at midnight opening day, we've got High Point Liberty, a fantastic game. Two teams that will discuss on this very podcast as favorites in their conference. And then straight through the night, the sicko's game of the year to open the season, 3 a.m. Eastern Grandling in Northern Illinois, Gap State Marimack coming from 6 a.m. in Rock Hill. And Winthrop Queens will probably be recognized by fans of the field of 68s opening broadcasts last year. Winthrop Queens, I believe, was the first game of the season. A lot of wagers on that game, because what else are you going to do on the opening game of the season? Murray State, Tennessee State, Utah, Northern Kentucky, UAB versus McNeese, and Ferman, Bethune, Cookman wraps it all up in Rock Hill. Kai, it just warms my heart to see this. We've got great mid-major programs on display. I'm excited. I can't wait. Yeah, I can't promise that I'm going to watch the 3 a.m. tilt between Grandling and N.I.U. So I don't know if I can do it. I appreciate that it's happening. I'm going to bet the under in that game. And then I hope I don't wake up to a winner. Jim, how about that? A waking cash. Well, that's right. That's a great way to do it. Interesting. But under. Well, it's 3 a.m. That's a big one. That's a big one. It's going to be, though, a 3. I can't imagine the puppies are moving to a quick side to side. I don't know. That's a sicko game. Props to both coaches for accepting that. Someone's got to do it, right? Like, unless it's Hawaii or someone in the Polynesian, like, someone's got to do it. So good for those boys. Yeah, hey, it gets them discussed. And I think that's a smart approach to take. First game of the year, is Grandling Northern Illinois going to be a game that anyone talks about? If it's not, it's 3 a.m. Almost certainly not. Instead, it's going to be, you're going to get a John Rostin tweet about stand-alone game. So you get that. You get everybody just chattering about that up late. So Matt Mackersack, the new coach at Northern Illinois, shout out to him, shout out to Grandling as well. Everybody come together to make this happen an iconic event for College basketball. Well, that's all I got for Roots Roundup. Just wanted to give a nod to that event, to make people aware of it, tell them to tune in. But now it's time to get into the nitty-gritty, Mr. McKeown. And this is when we talk about majors, maybe. Very exciting. Mid-major extravaganza. Here we go. OK, as a reminder, favorites, dark horses, maybe some coaching changes, storylines. We're just going to kind of keep it loose and free and do the weave thing that we tend to do. The order is not super-- I try to do it kind of on a Kempom standings of last season. But it gets kind of screwed up because the UAC is a brand new league. And we will talk about them in a second. But we're going to start off with the brand new Mountain West, fellas. And if you are out there and saying, wow, why does the Mountain West have its own preview podcast? Jim, that's because the league is just not very good anymore. They lost their heavy hitters. You have some of the old stand-by still in the league except New Mexico, like Nevada. But there's new boys in town. There's Hawaii. There's Utah. There's UC Davis, for some reason. It's a strange league. So new teams of the story, Jim. The favorites, I agree, with your choices and our little outline here. Grand Canyon, New Mexico. For me, clear two favorites in this league. Their rosters look very good. New Mexico best coach in the league, in my opinion. And Eric Olin and Grand Canyon's talent is through the roof. Overwhelming, in fact, Grand Canyon, the fact that Tyler Barron might be a backup big man when I think he could have been a starting five at a power five school. Just shows you the financial might that Grand Canyon has. New Mexico and unbelievable back court, returning both to net and hall from last year. But yeah, Kai, your point. The Mountain West, it has no depth anymore. It gone long, gone are the days. What was it, three years ago that the Mountain West got six teams or something like that? Or maybe it was a little further back than that. But we've seen four bids out of this conference in the past. We've seen get close to even more than that. That's just not going to happen anymore. All the states are going, Colorado state, Boise state, San Diego state. Good riddance, not good riddance. But yeah, that has left a power vacuum. And I think New Mexico with Olin is going to step into it. They would be my pick. I just entrust them a little bit more with the pit. Even though Grand Canyon's got a green home court advantage, too. I have some intrigue by UNLV. I just kind of like the roster. I don't know if I trust Passner to overcome two better teams with their coaches, but it's going to be kind of thorn in the side and will everybody will think they will win the conference tournament because it's at UNLV and they've got the home court advantage and they'll probably be hot coming down the stretch. That's how it goes. I guess we can mention for leagues that do have odds right now. Grand Canyon's plus 200, New Mexico's plus 225. So very clear. The books agree with that. I don't love any long shot. I don't know Matt, I'll ask you real quick. Do you think any of the newbies can compete? I'm sort of intrigued by Hawaii a little bit too. Yeah, a little bit as well. I think Nevada is going to be rock solid and they're like typical fringy top 100 top 75 maybe even Wyoming kind of a team that was sort of slept on last year, just kind of fell beneath. I mean, that was a top 100 team. I've like no one even took them seriously whatsoever. And then beyond that, I sort of lose intrigue. The problems of those teams certainly have like a ton of upsides. So like, to me, it's like very clearly a grand canyon, New Mexico discussion. And I like the Lobos. I'm legit. I'm with them with the O and there. Hi, what is the over under for Air Forces Kenpon rank? They're better than last year. They bring like everyone back, but they are like the worst team in the country. I'm going to say over under 335. Okay. Hey, they finished 345th last year. Okay. I'm going over that. 310. Yeah, I think it's 300. 310 brand new coach. Camping and transfers. Yeah, they were one of our favorite teams to bet against last year because they just got mulled over and over and over. There's like a month and a half period where their only cover was a breakaway bucket at the buzzer to lose by 22 instead of 24 like congrats. So we will miss that Air Force edition. The air troops. Okay, moving on. Missouri Valley. One of our favorite leagues. St. Louis. Of course, a part of all of our lives. The favorites this year. Three, a three way favorite I would think, but man, this league is deep. Murray State. And if you've been paying attention to their off season four and tour, my goodness. They've been playing very well. Domen might be the best player in this league. Illinois State somehow got Chase Walker and Johnny Kinziger to come back to school. That's a shocker in this day and age. Both of them could have gotten an I L somewhere else. And the new I see returns a lot of guys for for Robbie Sun. But don't count up. Belmont Evan Bradz. He might just be a star. Casey Alexander leaves. Evan Bradz takes over for him at the coaching spot. Drake always kind of there too. And then Bradley reloads every single season. Matthew A.J. Green's dad is now the coach at you and I as Ben Jacobson goes to Utah State. New coach at Belmont, as I mentioned. Your thoughts on this league. I think this league will get flatter. I think the bad teams will be better than they were last season. I think Valpo is very clearly like risen out of the drags. I expect Evan's will to be like improved actually. I think in the USA will be improved. I don't think they'll be good. But I think they'll be better. This will be sort of like a this will be the one year. I'm like, okay, this is I'm okay with this being a neutral site event. I don't think any one teams going to be like a dominant like squad that's going to get screwed over by the kind of neutral site crap sheet that the enterprise sets up. I think Murray's the best team. I kind of like UIC. I think the flame ons. I'm a nice little roster and ESA has been deceptively really good last two seasons. I think we kind of need to reframe our perception of him coming out of like the UAB thing. I think he's very legitimately one of the best coaches in this league. I kind of came to come came to Jesus last year, but it was like, you know, I think I prematurely buried this 10 year at UIC and he's done quite a good job there. Illinois State. I'm sorry. Roger pal in there too. Just a nice shop so far, given them. Yeah. Retained a couple good sophomores at Valpo. That's why I like I hold some intrigue for them. Usually see those guys migrate to another school for a bigger bag and not return to Valpo, but they got a chance. I believe I was just trying to verify this. Perhaps one of you can that the archmanist format has changed and they're not going to have four games in a day anymore. It's like the different buy setups, which is a real poor one out for one of the best conference tournaments in the land. It's ice, ice-feeling sadness. Yeah, archmanist is the best tournament, at least my favorite. So yeah, it's a shame. Yeah, certainly a little bias with our St. Louis roots, as you mentioned, attending the archmanist, but I'm a Murray State guy here just on overwhelming roster talent. Like the foreign guys that they bring in our like power five caliber. I don't know if they're going to immediately come in and be like dynamic studs, but they're like production background pedigree is guys that would typically go to a power five school. They have great retention. Did fairly well transfers like Kai mentioned have been awesome this off season. I don't know if I trust Ryan Miller as a defensive coach quite honestly. Last year they were in embarrassment on that end. Like when I would tune into their games, the effort was low. The scheme was sloppy. They had great talent last year and kind of flopped down the stretch, but I'm sort of buying it this year. Matthew, I don't I guess I'll just say Kai, my pick is Murray State, but I do think both of those Illinois schools are right in the mix. My pick is also Murray State. Roman Domen. Roman Domen, that guy is going to rock. Also, Kate Magwood was like a top 50 recruit, and he is now on this team as well. Yeah, from Auburn. Remember the name Mark Pagin. He's one of their boring guys coming over. He shoots the lights out and is very, very fun worth noting. We did not mention Belmont Northern Iowa Southern Illinois or Bradley, just kind of for a context of how this league is sort of evolving. Yeah. Yeah. I guess there are. There are odds out for this right now. Bill Murray State at the top plus 225 fell by UIC on the one state plus 300. Bradley 81, Southern Illinois 101. Like there is a shade of one eight to one in the park. No, no, Bradley is 81 and Southern Illinois is a hundred to one to one. Bradley's roster is very uninspiring. I think that's not very good. Yeah. It's just like. Yeah. Well, Kai, I'm not saying that was in order. I'm just kind of for context saying how far down those are. Yeah. Belmont and Drake are 10 to one. That's like your next year. Wow. Okay. Good to know. Kai just might have wanted to make a bet immediately as well. Yeah. I don't really care who's on Bradley's roster. They're going to be a top team in this league every year. Brian Wardle the league. We love to hear it. I like it. I just lost everyone. Go on. That's a silly line. Okay. We move on. The UAC. What's the UAC? That's the United Athletic Conference. It's the brand new league that kind of smashed together. The A-Sun, the WAC. The A-Sun still exists. The WAC has gone. But some A-Sun teams came over to the UAC. It's Abel and Christian Tarleton, UT Arlington, Little Rock, and then you have the A-Sun contention of Austin P, Central Arkansas, Eastern Kentucky, North Alabama, and West Georgia. So yeah. Very, very interesting league. Yeah. Favorites, Jim. I mean, Little Rock, I suppose. Hey, by the way, Travis Ford is now a coach at Little Rock for you, slew fans out there and Oklahoma State fans. He's an upgrade over Darryl Walker. So I do accept Little Rock having or one of the earning one of the favorites tags in this league. They have a lot of talent, especially from the Juco Circuit. Cory Gibson, as weird as he is, has done very well at Austin P. And he has two very, very good players back in Marshall and Collins. And then Central Arkansas. Don't count them out. Shulman had a great year last season. Tarleton's in the mix with a new coach, former Utah State assistant Eric Hout. EKU is there. It's a kind of a wide open league, Jim. It's how I'll frame it. Yeah. There's going to be a few of these where I just had a like brain conniption trying to figure out who is the favorite. Like, I think Little Rock is going to be the consensus, both betting and odds wise. But I just, I don't know, like Travis Ford, am I going to trust him to be the favorite and go wire to wire as the best team in the league? It's a great roster. Like he accumulated pieces very well from different avenues of college basketball. Great two co players and some of the D1 transfers are better than I would have expected. But I'm not sure I fully buy it, Matt. I think that the dark horse I'm most intrigued by here is Tarleton. A completely new era. How it could be really good. We saw what he was doing with his creativity on the defensive end. What that zone has done in other mid major leagues, like the horizon when he was at NKU. It was a big part of that. I don't mind the talent there. But yeah, I don't know. Central Arkansas was very resurgent last year. Austin P typically brings in a bunch of really good freshmen. They've also got Zyri Collins back as a sophomore, Uri's younger brother. I don't know. My big takeaway here, Matt, is that I want to keep calling this league the whack, like Jack Kerawack. Yeah. The UAC, the whack. Yeah. That's all I got, though. I guess, I guess I think Little Rock's the best team. I think you're probably right. I like you, uh, Central Arkansas. I guess I'm rooting for Central Arkansas. But yeah, man, John Shulman, like, I don't think we talked enough about how awesome he did. I mean, they were, I mean, holy cow. I know they got a cam hunter as like the fun boomerang boost that sort of slingshot at them. But I mean, I just did a huge fan of both of the Shulman bros and he actually kept some dudes. I think that's a really good team. Like top 150, top 125, upside. Yeah, top 10 shout out. No one's going to be better than this. There's no top 100 team in this league, right? Like, this is, this is probably a 14 seed type conference is sort of yeah, maybe like 15, uh, as yes, they move all All the auto bids have to move down because there's more 16-seat planes, so let's shift some further down. But yeah, Central Arkansas finished 195 spots ahead of their preseason Kenpah ranking last year. Just blew it out of the water, 19, 10, and 3 against the spread for Shulman. That's not bad. And you know what's sad? We didn't mention U.T. Arlington. You know why? They don't look very good. And that's pretty sad for the Gonzaga, Texas, or whatever their A.D. called them when they fired. It's got cross. We'll never stop. We'll never stop bringing that up. The guy you fired is so good he's not an ACC school and you have no upside in the U.A. Okay. This Sousa conference USA is where we're going next. Another kind of strange league. Lottaq is gone. Lottaq is now in the Sunbelt. There's been a lot of conference changes. This office is very difficult to keep track of. You took. You took. And the Mountain West is very strange as well. So it's a 10 team league now. If you recall, Delaware and Missouri State both joined this league last year. So it's a bit of a hodgepodge around the country. Liberty is the favorite Matthew, but it's not a runaway like it's been last couple years in the preseason. Last year I think Liberty had in shoulders in the preseason, the best team. This year I think it's a lot closer. And then behind them, I basically have New Mexico State, Kenisaw, San Houston, West Kentucky, maybe in the middle Tennessee like equal right now. It's going to be a very, very parody ridden league. I agree. I think it's going to be net better than last year. Like a lot of these teams that sort of fumbled around them because of injuries or whatever. I'd like Sam Houston. I think we'll be much better this year. I think West Kentucky will be much better this year. I think New Mexico State. Who didn't finally has a roster actually kind of like. And I think he actually kind of likes. And even Missouri State, like it's much fun as we make fun of Kwanzo. And right place. So like, whatever he said, like was some publicity stunt to try and get people to come and dumb. But like he finds talent. He finds guys that are good. I think that's a talented roster too. Very parody ridden league. I agree. But I'd like to see like one team like really pop, you know, I mean, like just kind of, you know, just everything that breaks right and, you know, top 75 or something. This league's been missing kind of that upper echelon squad last year's. Yeah. Last year nobody cracked the top 100. Yeah. And I like Liberty's roster a lot. I think both those D2 transfers that have Dylan Clawson and Asmar Garcia Araujo are like perfect fits for the scheme. I am very excited about the end of Campbell Twins, like little shooters like that is Liberty's bread and butter makes a ton of sense there. But beyond that, Kai, I was with you. I like, I started listing other teams that could contend as dark horses and I was about to write all nine of them. Yeah. There's an argument a case to be made like Delaware was terrible last year, but they had five guys. Like they they were so they're better than they actually injured Jacksonville State Ray Harper always gets like kind of a transfer class that raises an eyebrow. You're like, I can see how that that team would compete. And then FIU, I don't know what exactly the project will turn out to be there with Joey Cantons coming in, but they just added Tijon Sane, the like first team all big sky point card from we were state like over the weekend, they've got a bunch of great Juco players two top 10 guys per Juco recruiting dot com. They have a two like top 100 recruits freshman recruits like the talent level and FIU is remarkably high. And we could see it be like a major flip from I liked Jeremy Ballard. I don't think he was a great elevator of talent. So suddenly FIU could be right up there too. This league is going to be a topsy turvy. One team starts seven and one and finishes the year 10 and 10 and a team that starts four and four goes 14 and four. I can't wait to see it because it's everybody's good there indeed shout out Buche Magu in the chat. Yeah KK Robinson, he's now in Mexico state. He hasn't played in a couple years. He could be the best player in this league. He is that good, hopefully he's healthy this year. Yeah. SCC recruit in like 2019, he's been around a while. Yep. Okay, one of our favorite leagues, a league I don't watch a ton of because I am a baby and I have to go to bed early. It's the big west. The favorites. It's silly. You see your reminds league in my opinion there, the best team in this conference. Now you see Santa Barbara, I think is the betting favorite out there. I like you see you see San Diego better than Babs this season. I'm kind of all the way in on the on the tritons Matthew, as you like to call them. And I'm not really a believer in Babs, I'm kind of past the passion act hype. His rosters are always talented. He seems to always kind of underperform. In the last team I'll mention, by the way, Storyline, Sac State, Utah Valley, welcome, welcome to the big west. This is Cal Poly's best team ever, Matthew. Uh, yes. I agree. I wish they would have kept, uh, I wish Tarl Aqua to be back and kind of used to have him. I guess Bandal, that matters. Well, I think they're top three team. I'm still going to pick you here by me because that's just for the rule that I have abide by for as long as I've been, uh, on this planet. Seasons always feisty because they have transfers and newman can coach, uh, but yeah, I was be torn between the UC San Diego and UC Irvine, not to be boring Jim, but like no one else really looks like a threat to me. I know maybe we're hyped, hyped about the Cal State Bakers Field Todd Lee Resurrection campaign. But I don't think they're getting that better. They'll be better. They'll be better. Yeah. They'll be less bad. Yes. I agree. You're here. Like I don't think there's really any debate. Like they almost have like a p5 adjacent roster, but I don't believe past knackle maximize it. We've made jokes on this pod about like my, if you know the like the meme about what would you say to be older people, you're kidnapped or you're like under duress, you'd be like, oh, tell them to bet UC Santa Barbara over UC Irvine. I think everybody on this pod would know that I was like in trouble if I said that. I may believe her in Turner. I think the defense is going to continue to be excellent. I think you get a breakout from Eli Choll. And fellas, did you see the stat line over the weekend for one seven foot nine Olivier Ru? Uh, it was he was competent. I hear Jim. I think he had like 21 points and seven rebounds in 20 minutes or so. Oh, he was down. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. The man can develop big men and I think that sets up well for them. I do like Cal Poly as well. It's kind of in my darling Mike DeGeorge is a terrific coach there, but I will be picking Irvine. I will pick UC San Diego second and Babs is going to be third despite me to Jim with you. Uh, I mentioned Sac State. Yes. They still have Mike Bibi as their coach. No, you should not bet on them. Even though the roster is talented, uh, I mentioned Utah Valley Cal Baptist also joins the league. I have a 12 team league now with a Y and UC Davis going to the Mountain West. That's the big West. The Ivy. Oh, I love the Ivy. I'm almost done writing it for basket under review. I just have Yale left. It's better this season. Lots of guys back going to be really good league pin Yale Harvard, probably the favorites in this conference. Definitely the favorites in this conference. TJ Powers back for pin Robert Hinton's back for Harvard. He's the two best players in the league, Yale is Yale. And then Jim Princeton brings literally every single player back from last season. Columbia has a feisty roster with Kevin Hovedi in year two. Uh, Fran McCaffrey can you repeat Harvard hasn't been to the dance since 2015. Princeton last year was the worst they've been since 2009. Dartmouth has a new coach. Brown has a new coach. Dartmouth might be one of the worst teams in the country. Jim. Yeah, I can't make a case at all for Dartmouth or Brown with their coaching turnover. It's just hard to flip a program in an Ivy like you can't load up with transfers. You've got to develop and a lot of these other teams are just way more experienced, cohesive, have more pieces back. Penn is very loaded. Penn could be a top 100 team if they're healthy all year. That is an impressive roster in McCaffrey obviously knows what he's doing on the sideline. It feels weird for Yale to not be like immediate one to, but I just, I don't think they are with some of the losses that they took on the roster and what Penn brings back. And, uh, who's my, oh, Harvard, Harvard immensely talented. A couple of years ago this class with Robert Hinton was like the recruiting class and most of them are still there. Hinton could have gone wherever he wanted, instead they're back. They've got a top five starting lineup that is as good as any in the league. They just kind of need a big man. That's like the one thing they're really lacking and haven't been able to find one. I don't know if you can just bring one in the Ivy as a freshman. But, uh, yeah, very deep league, uh, two through six, I think, could all contend for the top. Uh, fun league Matthew. I'll always enjoy it. Yeah. I mean, even Cornell is always a team I, I root for it. I don't know. I don't think they're, they don't have the firepower on paper, uh, that, that, uh, excuse me, that Penn does, I think Princeton could just be like a classic like bounce back, bring dudes back, be healthy, actually have depth for once, Yale's Yale, Harvard is Harvard. He's a good coach. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Fine. Sorry. I didn't think Brown's roster is too terrible. But yeah, I think it's, it's going to be evil suspects with, I think sort of Penn is moving more clearly into like that upper echelon now with assuming McCaffrey is going to have this talent crop is like the standard, um, and we know he can coach, like they were good defensively last year, like relative to Ivy counterparts. That's sort of a, you wouldn't think that for Serfran and his foreign big 10 days, but they guard it. Number three in the week, I think in defense. Yale real quick. They were 55 spots better than the next best team in 2025 in Kempom. They were 71 spots better than the next best team last year in Kempom. Yale's been crushing this league last couple of years. But like Jim said, Penn and Harvard right there this season or at least they project to be on paper. Big sky time. This league is down. Kind of sucks. Matt, this league kind of sucks. I will dub Montana's state as my favorite in this league. They bring back a ton. Matt Logi is there for year four. And then I guess it's like Montana. They bring in a couple D2 guys in the back court. Those D2 guys good. I feel like all the guys I think they're good. They're pretty good. Portland State flipped their roster again. They have mostly D2 guys also. Matt Weber states got a new coach. We mentioned Sac State. They're gone. The talents just kind of down across the board. At least in my little opinion. I agree. I think in a situation when you have sort of depleting talents and you have parity in terms of caliber, like just default to coaches you trust the most. So I like your your your Matt Logi bet. I mean, I love Alex Proble. I just don't know if I feel like they actually might have one of the better rosters. Like that actually might be a decent pick as go Idaho. But yeah, this is tough, Jim. I was hoping this would be the year that maybe Southern Utah would put together like a decent roster. I got a Rob Gider. It could put something. But they're they're they're they're they're yeah, I don't know, they're grasping for like duds of straws at this point. So yeah, the Montana two schools were the like the ones I defaulted to as favorites. But man, it's not like any sort of head and shoulders above one of those conferences where I had a hard time picking out the favorite. I think you can kind of go beauty and the idea to be holder in this conference and a lot comes down to your evaluation of the D2 guys. So again, shout out to CBB Analytics. That's a great way to try to figure out relative player strength how good was the competition they were playing against because he he they've got conferences ranked there as well. But yeah, Montana's D2 back court is good. Then I probably have them as the favorite. But it's not convincing. And it's it's hard to pick anybody else. Wever State is just the weirdest roster because they have six transfers that didn't play last year. Like redshirted for one reason or another. And so that is like the most mystery box of mystery boxes you can possibly touch. Yeah, I don't know what to make of them. I kind of like what Eastern Washington brought back and added tabbie Jackson former Colorado State guard was also at Southern Utah. Didn't play last year. He could be a standout. But yeah, Kai, this is wide open. I have no like convincing. This is the best team take. Yeah, speaking of Southern Utah brand new team in this league. They joined from the WAC as does Utah tech. Neither team competes in my opinion. I mean, they'll compete the win games, but they're not threats to win the league. I'm glad they stuck together, though, as the the big rivals in the southern part of Utah. I like that they're in the same conference still formally known as Dixie State Utah tech trailblazers. What did big sky do in the turn last year? Idaho got smoked. Yeah, tough drum 15 scene, I think. Yeah. Dix guy is a little. Yeah, the Mount West, the Mount West brother, a baby brother. I'm just like, don't really do a lot. It's not bill for it. Coastal, almost like colonial coastal athletic association. It's still the CIA, but it changed their first, I guess, for a word of the acronym. The favorites in this league. It's top heavy this year in my opinion, Jim. It's UNTV Wilmington and it's Charleston and those are the top two teams by a significant margin. Charleston has a ton of talent. They got John Gross as a new head coach from Akron. He's fantastic. He was great at Akron. In UCW, he brings back a couple of key guys. They had Xavier Brown, not that Xavier Brown, but the other is Xavier Brown, formerly of South Florida. They're 29 and 7 in this league over the last two years and Siddle is most likely going to get a power job in the near future. I'll call a dark horse as Hofstra Jam is my third team and then after that, it's kind of like, I don't really like any other team. Yeah, it did. It is a so clearly two horse race. The odds reflect that. This is one of the conferences with odds out there. Charleston plus 200, UNC Wilmington plus 225. And then it's three teams at 12 to one. So excuse me, four teams at 12 to one. Like the books are telling you, we don't know who the third best team is. Charleston recently got a boost if 5 for 5 is a thing because to Vary Johnson would probably be the best player in the league. And he's following John Gross from Akron. So if eligible, that is a major, major boost for them. Siddle, you mentioned just kind of always accumulates in the past. It's been like a CAA all-star team. He just like plucks the best player off of three teams in the league. But this year, he kind of went outside the family. CJ Lusterback from injury missed all last year is huge. Like one of the better shooters in all of mid-major basketball, so good to have him. I just can't like go big on any of the other teams. Towson, I think, might be my third favorite here, Matt. I just know what the identity is going to be with Pascari. And I think they've got some of the bodies up front. Got Baby and Defoe, Cheek and Defoe, the old Casey and Defoe, the shop blocker at Seaton Hall. He's his little brothers there. They got a couple other big dudes that can bang on the boards. But that's it, man. Hard to make a big case for anybody else. I'll throw Hofstra in there. Sort of like a reclamation project bet on the old, I'm sure the Rambler fans listen to her like, "Oh, yeah, good luck with Justin Moore in two areas that worked out great for us." But like those guys are talented, like definitely probably a cut above this league, to be honest. Tanner Thomas is certainly a legit player when healthy. I think people totally fried about what he did at Sacred Hard. And then up front, they got size, two more seven footers. Depths, always a concern. But speedy's been good without depth before. That's like kind of a high upside, like high, wide tail, good, if everything breaks right, like they could be the best team in this league. Yep, there are my thirties as well. The pride for our last year's NCAA tournament representative. I also shout out Jimmy Williams, new coach of Campbell. He has basically a D2 roster. We'll see how it works out for him. It's tough loss, John Andrew Jack going to Louisville. Yeah, going to Louisville, and on the way out the door being like, "I'm leaving because they're broke." Yeah. And they look broke with, he brought over like guys he coached from Aaron should last year, the D2 squad. Okay, that's the CAA. Matt Smith, Matt's a favorite league, the Mac, Matty Mac, favorites this year. I got 240 fellas. Toledo and Miami are my favorites. I love the Rockets this year, man. We say it every year, but it's Todd Ksier. The tournament has a new format. They're giving buys to the top teams. Toledo has Sean Jones from our cat Rich Barron from Providence and Angel Montas, who I believe he started his career. I knew he put Fordham. Fordham I believe started up for more. That's a really good Mac trio right there. And then Miami brings back a few back court pieces. They will not run the table again this season. I guarantee it. Matthew, you're typical Kent State, Akron, Bowling Green, as dark horses, and don't sleep on our boy, Khalil Fennel at Western Michigan. I'm very high on them as well this season. I agree. I hope I think it's the Rockets here. Just Akron and Kent for the first time feel much more vulnerable than usual. But I think that's countered by sort of the don't forget about, don't sleep on Ohio, but I just got back Jackson. Yeah, Pebbleowski. Today I think is overrated, but like obviously a very good player. And they got some talent there, and Jeppel's not to be doubted. And Travis Teal obviously has a pretty prolific back court. We probably should just be calling Miami the favorite. And then St. Toledo is like the closest hunter to the hunted. But maybe I'm, I don't know. I think Miami is good to me. Yeah, right. They also, they get will fall back if they achieve exactly. He is the perfect big man for the system. He knows that he can play well with those guards. They get Ipsaro back healthy. They were doing that 18-0, 31-0 regular season run without their starting point guard. That's how good Scout Jack was off the bench. Now you play those two guys together. And I think that's going to be very tricky. I really like Eastern Michigan as a dark horse. Billy Domen coming in. A very good defensive coach was able to retain Muhammad Habab. Like maybe he'd be one of the best players in the conference. Most versatile for sure. This coming season brought in some solid transfers that I actually kind of buy. I'm with Kai as well. Western Michigan. Definitely an intriguing dark horse with Fennel. He just upgrades wherever he goes. And I'm debating if I want to board that with you guys. Maybe we'll get there. But I might take Kent State over Toledo. I kind of buy this great state group more than more than you do. It would help if they get Christian Henry the Fordham transfer to be able to be eligible. A fifth year guy. But Chancey Willis has been unbelievable in this conference before. And I buy that at point guard. The bodies that they've got to go along with that are pretty solid. Someone was okay a couple of years ago. But my name is the favorite. Kind of go in different directions after that. Betting odds are out here for for this conference as well. Miami plus 200. Akron plus 325 Toledo plus 500 Kent State plus 700 East from Michigan 9 to 1. I have an East from Michigan 12 to 1. I wonder if I'm responsible for that going down to single digits. Good stuff. But then also want to mention 22 game schedule this year. Yeah. Full double round robin. So they're changing the tournament and changing regular season. I almost better Miami-O win total because I was like they're not going to go 16 and 2. two because there's 15 and a half. And I was like, oh, wait, they have 22 games instead of 18. That makes a major difference for conference win totals. But yeah, I'm buying the Travis steel stock now. He got it figured out last year. I did buy it at Toledo plus 550 gem in this league. I mean, this, this league adds Cleal final and Billy Donlin. Like, this is a, the coaching level has been raised very, like, if you're a UMass fan, you're like, yeah, that's going to say, as I mentioned, New TRL, I tend to say, we didn't mention them. Hey, we didn't mention UMass. Now, great choice. You, their fans are probably thrilled that we didn't mention them. I think I take seven coaches over. Yeah. Even central Michigan, all the directional schools in McGarry, last year. Totally agree. Todd Simon. Yep. We are headed to a league that has gotten better and better every single season. It's the Southland. Once a league that was equivalent to the Swack and Meack in our, in our annual preview draft, and now it's like legit mid major. Steven of Austin and McNeese are the favorites. McNeese still has Larry Johnson. He, he's the best player in this conference. I don't know. Corey chess is going to be an absolute monster in this league too. Like what the heck? The hasn't had knots. However, Lamar, Jim, Jordan Fee getting a lot of hype. New coach at Lamar. He has some talent in his roster. Also, UT Rio Grande Valley. I was ready to tank them immediately and they still have talent. They lose fennel, but the roster is there. Nichols has a new coach as well. And then, of course, we mentioned on our other podcast. New Orleans is now called LSU New Orleans. Boo. Yeah. That's a boring branding there. Yeah. I was impressed with what Chambers did to reload the coffers at Rio Grande Valley. I don't know what to think of him as a coach. He's coming off the the Will Wade staff. So cover your ears and see state fans. But he at least seems like he knows what he's doing in roster construction. Yeah. It's McNeese and Steven of Austin again. To me, though, and last year, look at what the defense was for SFA. Browers first year. He has a great bouncy shot blocker that denies everything at the rim. So they go out and get Edwin Daniel from LaSalle, who is going to be that caliber of shot blocker in this conference. Like probably one of the 10 best in the country, at least in block rate. So I think they're going to be right up there. Yes. McNeese has the best roster. I cannot believe they retain Larry Johnson. I think one of the guys that gave us a crying emoji at our top 100 players because did not include him. He found that and called us out. But yes, the talents is terrific there. I am just so intrigued. Lamar is going to be one of the teams. I'm like one of the 10 teams I'm most excited to watch this year because it's just because of what Fee carries as a reputation from a D2 coach. And there's enough like D2 plus D1 defectors on that roster that it could be like the top one 30-ish. I don't know. I don't think that's insane. I agree. I like, I mean, I'm ready from FAU, like Barry from Memphis. Their D2 guys are good. Like I have no reason to think they can't be at top 150 team. That might be a bullish projection. But I think McNeese is probably your wiser wager SFA. We probably should give Mr. Broward some credit and obviously they retain some key back court guys. But outside of those three, I don't know who else, no one else really catches my eye. I never get this conference, right? I don't know it well. I've just been like blindside about how good it's a guy. It's tough. This is the other 22 game round rather than Duller on Robin when they play like the giant league schedule of everybody twice. I think in Carnot Word was like a pick to top three team last year and they went 7 and 15. So it's just hard to, it's hard to do the match. Daniel Lamar. Their best finish ever is 108. Pat Knight had him at 108. He made the tournament with them. It's actually pretty impressive, Mr. Broward. It is very positive is regard as a bad coach, right? Yeah, like a NEPO higher attack. It's like, no, he almost had a top 100 team at Lamar. Let's give him a little credit. Okay, the horizon. Welcome, Niu. You're now on the horizon. I would have not known that had been not done this podcast. I have not there yet. I totally forgot they went to this league. Lots of transfers in this league. Just transfers galore. And then of course, I should note, watch IU ND at least once they play the craziest style of basketball in division one just up and down up and down. No defense. Jim favorites in this league. I guess it's right state, but like Milwaukee's there. Oakland, Robert Morris. I think Green Bay is going to be pretty solid unfortunately. Doug Gottlieb's storylines, a plenty there. Marcus Hall is really good. Juco point card too. Detroit's not bad. It's flat. I'm going to go right because of how good they were last season. Sarge and I think is a really good coach. But you could convince me it's another team. Milwaukee, how much talent they have every single year and London needs to do something, man? He just has been a little bit of let down since taking the reins. Yeah, hasn't had the year where they like really maximize. And then when he loses two starters and they go being at large team at UCF, it's like, wait, should that team have been better? Maybe a little bit. Yes, super flat. I didn't really know who to call the favorite here. I would not bet any team better than like four to one. Like that should be the price of the top team because I don't think there's anybody that's a runaway favorite. Yeah, I agree. Kai Green Bay begrudgingly. It's going to be pretty solid. I would also pick right state just on the strength of I think Helen Pickett might be like the best player in this league this year. I know the stats aren't super standout last year, but he took a little bit to get into the rotation by the end of the year was like a terror, like going to be the defensive player in the year, defensive player of the year in the league. I think it's possible. These and guards coming in, I agree, Sarge and very, very good coach. I'm sure Maddie's going to pump up his boy, Ethan Faulkner, the penguins. He's always that penguins man. Yeah, I just love his roster though, man. Like this league's really down. Like all the top heavy hitter, it really is. Like this is guy think the lowest high finisher. I think this is your that you see that. So the tallest midget given that. I don't know. It's fine, I think. Overly PC. I kind of disavow it myself. The tallest tallest fifth grader tallest kindergarten. It's a great year to be like a Detroit or like a Green Bay, right? Like the league is falling back to you. You can like really like on a relative scale take advantage here on a pretty flat. But yeah, Bart Lundy, a guy that we've had just so much affinity for like wish he had like a more a more enticing roster. At this might really year where you don't need crazy talent. You just got to have a cohesive union, which he has not had. Like his team has just been way too too volatile. Like injuries and just like personalities. Like maybe just a solid team that's going to win this league this year. Hi, I want to just add to your IU Indie point because not only are they like crazy fun to watch with the style of the pace. Gus Atterson might lead the country and scoring. He had a 38% usage at Idaho State last year. And they like didn't really play him much. And towards the end of the year, they let him play 30 minutes and back to back games and he had 65 combined points. That's like not playing that fast in this system. He could go nuts. Pat Curtin, the Bucknell transfer was like a 30% usage guy too. Those two are going to combine to score like 45 points a night. And they're going to give up 100. And it's going to be a really fun basketball experiment again. This league was good by the way last year, but Rose will be speaking like four top 200 teams. I just don't think it's that good this season. It's going to be a little bit down as Matt alluded to. The Sun Belt is where we're going next. You talk about a league that has a lot of crap at the bottom. It's holding them down. They add Louisiana Tech. That's a new team in this conference. I that's a I guess it's a football move. But man, basketball wise, that's a pretty big downgrade for a really good program coming from conference USA. They lose Texas State to the pack 12, congrats to the Bobcats. The favorites that the top league is pretty competitive. I actually have Georgia State as my best team in this conference, Matthew. I'm trusting John Cremons. And I like his roster quite a bit. Arkansas State is right there. James Madison is right there. Georgia State, by the way, has your boy Jacob Meyer, Matthew. You can be player here in this league. So their miss has a lot of talent. If you trust Jay Ladner, App State has Dustin Kern. So they're always going to be in the top five of this league. That's where I'm starting off with Matthew. I agree. This is this in the conference USA. Just like the two sort of most bummer leagues, like just feel like they're just sort of in that, that ripe pickings for transfer portal plucking. And I think this year, like every team has been, has been hemorrhage pretty hard there. I have state I hate betting it's Dustin Kerns. I think Louisiana, Klanis White, last year was like so depressing, but I don't think he's a bad coach. I think if you worked for Calvin Samson for a while, I think you know what you're doing. I think they saw evidence of that last year and they actually got a couple of guys healthy and they have more talent this year. That's sort of another dark heart cell throw in there. But yeah, this is a flatly again, holy cow. Really flat. Yeah, last year, Jamir and Keller got hurt early, Louisiana, and they just they could score. And yeah, they just died. I have a little bit of a wager on Georgia State plus 650. And they're now like plus 375. I think yeah, people are apparently on board. The the Cremens train coming off the markbyington coaching tree. The talent is there. David Thomas and Jacob Meyer. I believe you united, right? They were a DePaul together or were I want to say they're on the same roster. I think David Thomas was David Thomas on Mercer at one point. He was very good there, I believe. And Meyer was on coastal. Yeah, both went to DePaul, parted ways and came back came back together, which I like to see. James Madison's roster is legit, though. They are the betting favorite right now. They've got the KJ Wyndham like post hype breakout potential like preseason candidate to be a big time breakout guy at Northwestern, then he just belly flopped and basically got benched on the stretch. But they've also got Garrett Sundra, a real ACC center, like coming down to this league. That's going to be kind of a presence inside Brandon Lee's coming from the big 10, a decent recruit at Illinois who never got to play very, very talented roster for James Madison. And you kind of just go through it. And a lot of these schools, yes, like Matt said, they get plucked with transfers. But I think there's some really good incoming bloggers as well. I was just, oh, yeah, Southern Miss kind, glad you mentioned them because that you look at that roster from the right angle. And it's like holy crap. They could murder people. Isaac Tveris shocking. He didn't end up at a P5 school just with his defensive and athletic upside. But I don't know if Leonard elevates them all the way to the top. He did win the league once. They were like 200 to one. I think they started the year like 340th and Ken Palm and ended up winning a conference. But that tells you how open this league can be. Like this is not one where I'd trust like a heavy favorite ever. I think J.M.U. it O.D. you to Elastorix and O.D. you have some talent ish. I don't think they're real coach. But like J.M.U. clearly has like the most resources in this league. I think like we're for the foreseeable future. I think we'll continue to see them as like the prohibitive talent favorite. And you know, it's just such a big peri-ridden league. You have to overcome that to win it. Got to mention South Alabama. I might just be able to rally because it's such a crap. She why not? Payton laws back. He's not calling you back, Matt. Stop trying to get into text. Matt's got a crush. Got it lost. Ah, it's so tough. Man, just yeah, Shaza Harris. Yeah, he's yeah, he's hoping. It seems like everybody learned from him of in this league of like, oh, Division II and N.A.I. guys can be awesome. Yeah, he was really on this. Yep. Yeah, he figured that out really, really, really. Adam Howard takes over Scott Cross at Troy. They'll be okay. And then you all well, you Elman Ro has new coach Ryan Cross, not related. He is an anti-Kennedy assistant from UAB. He brought three of his guys over. He didn't really play last season. I believe Rocco Miller did something for a bass gun reviewer. Cross said he's going to be Juco you. And they've got like seven Juco guys out the bench. Yeah, they really do. I'm going to mention guys from the Juco recruiting top 100. He's going to try to like just turn that out. Yep. Best strategy there. Yeah, because Kennedy was always good at UAB. See one yaxle into board. I like that. I mean, your Monroe is not a D1 program. It's like legitimately just not. It should not be playing D1 athletics. It should be like an FCS program. That's like high D2. So that's a smart approach. Cool nickname, though. The Warhawks. I agree. Big South. The favorite. It's high point by a mile. They could flirt with being a top 50 team this year. Cameron Fletcher is still on this team. He's like in year eight of college. Good job. Good job, man. They are the most talented roster. Flynn Clayman is a very good coach. The other teams in this league, Matt Presbyterian actually has a really intriguing roster. They've everyone back except for Pierce. And then Winthrop is kind of always in the mix. Transfer talent. We'll see if it's if it's up to snuff this season. It's basically high points league to lose. No love for Winthrop. They for one. They feel like their talent is not. It's not as good as it is. One of the weaker talent crops that they've had that Winthrop, which is kind of lovely. Yeah. No, I mean, it's high point by a mile here. I did like your your presbo call out. Okay. Ferrell's kind of underrated there. He's been real plucky. Good retention in a play set again. Doesn't feel like anything close to a D1 program. So rooting for them. Yeah, this is a race for second. Of all 32 conferences in the country, I think I'd be most confident in high point winning their league like relative to anybody else. Bartorvich's preseason rankings high point is 160 spots higher than anybody else. Nobody else inside the 220 and high point is 66th. The talent gap is just ridiculous. It gets more and more every year. Their roster is better than like Georgia Tech's roster. And Scott Cross is great, but like they have more talent than some P5 teams. I think they are more money. Completely voted. Yeah. Agreed more money. So it's no slight to like Winthrop or press with Terry and that they're just not going to be able to sniff the top of the league. It's because high point is that good. Shout out to Asheville. Asheville is a team that usually gets mentioned in this, but we did not mention it. Is there someone just like Jill Johnson from Bradford? Yeah. Well, Zach True's dad is like going to prison or something. So he has no money anymore. And that's why he's getting like Morrell just took a player from Radford. That's the Radford is not overpaying guys anymore because they don't have the money left. Okay. We move on to the summit. Another league that's kind of down. I'll go the usual suspects. The favorites here. It's St. Thomas. It's North Dakota State and it's out to Dakota State. St. Thomas has Birka and Austin Hero. That's right. Tyler's brother leading the way. Also Lorenz is going to be a very good player in the summit. It transfers in. And they have Johnny Tower. Their head coach. He's fantastic. NDSU is always in the mix, but they do flip the roster this season. Jim South Dakota State still has Joe Sailor. However, Eric Henderson is gone and Peterson has been. It's been one year. But we'll wait and see on him as a head coach. Omaha may be a dark horse. And then drum roll. Mark Turgeon is now the head coach at Kansas City. So we can call a ruse a dark horse as well. Denver is no longer in this league. They are in the whack. Yeah, goodbye. They would have brought back the player of the year in this conference. I see. I said, why don't you see? Sorry Johnson. Carson Johnson returns to Denver, but they're gone. And that means no first or second team all conference players back in the summit. Wow. This could be like maybe the worst year for the conference. Yeah. Fear. There's no like stud team atop. They were 24th in 2023. That's their lowest Kenpon finish as a conference. It could be like just maybe a one year dip, but down to like 26 or 27. I don't love any roster in this conference. I was trying to talk myself in the South Dakota State, but my god Peterson finished under 500 in this league. South Dakota State doesn't do that. They haven't been sub 200 in Kenpom since 2010. And he did it in his first year. So I'm not really sure who to throw my weight behind. It's probably just going to be, give me tower and BRK. Maybe the best player and probably the best coach of the conference. And that's who I'll ride with Matt, but I don't have like super high opinions of any roster here. I don't have a high opinion of Oral Roberts' roster. I think Corbyn that's actually a decent basketball coach and just like in classic year one mid-major fashion. If you tophead your roster, a couple guys get banged up and it just goes really, really south. I think that might be a, oh, wow. Look at OR. You just send it 10 and 2 in the league by like February. That's all I have to do. Yeah, this is much like the horizon for me. Just really, really feels like it's sort of flatlining over. Yeah. I know it's going to stay in Omaha, Kyle. I'll give more of, I respect it and write that near St. Thomas. I hope Thomas takes it this year. It's sort of like it kind of pounces on the opportunity that exists, I think, even though the roster is again, they'd probably take any one of the last three rosters in this roster. And yeah, shout out Dan the man, Luca Momchilevich. He is on St. Thomas. That is Milan's brother. I assume he's good. I have not dove into him yet. He's good. The Socon. We talk about depressing league all of a sudden. Good God. This, this league used to be awesome and it's, it's flat this season. Once again, there's a little intrigue, but the talent's kind of depleted. Favorites, I'll go ETSU by a hair for my best team. I like their transfers, Matt. I like some of the guys that got back firm in those right there. Richie Bob Richie is the class of this league. They got Bowser back from last season. That's about it. Dark Horses could be Chattanooga in a big bounce back for Dan Earl, Mercer, Samford, Plenty Acuff in year two. And then Matt, this could be VMI's best team in a while with TJ Johnson and Doc Bradley, Ricky Bradley. Ricky Bradley back in. Ricky Bradley. However, I got a tape from my expectations a little bit with VMI. So that's all relatively speaking with them. Super flat league once again. I just think it's, there's a ceiling with VMI, right? Like Wilson basically took them there and they had two years ago. This element of surprise and now just it's going to be hard to do anything like actually special. I agree that the most talented team is ETSU, but it's not by a, you know, I think there's some pockets of Samford, as you mentioned, Kai, even like Woffer's got some, got some pieces. I think Chattanooga will be respect Jim. And then it's just hard to bet against Perman. Like I, I watch Lucas Taze too much in the ACC. I was like, man, get somebody else. Like, but I guess he made something useful out of CarWid and I hate it. I guess it could work. You got to get talent next to you. I think I'm going to go Ferman, actually. I'm just going to go Ferman here, Kai. Jordan Butler, how about that, baby, anchoring the paint, your boy, former ticker? Yeah. I would agree, Matt, that East Tennessee states the, the best like roster on paper and Savage had a good season last year. However, I think the view of this conference is perfectly reflected in the betting odds where ETSU is four to one and they're the favorite. And we haven't even said the name of the second team in betting odds. Western Carolina is plus four 75. I don't really understand why it makes no sense. I would highly recommend not making that wager. But then you got Jared Hass at UNCG. with kind of like maybe a sneaky talented roster that he's probably not gonna elevate over expectations. Tobin Anderson's back in college who's with a Tennessee Taipei and that's actually kind of fun. They've got a D2 transfer, Sean Arnold who averaged three steals a game and like almost a double double in rebounds, but doesn't make threes and is a point card. Like it is a very confusing type of player, but it's fun. It's fun to have that in the conference. I kind of, I'm leaning towards Furman actually. I just mad at the sad part is it's partially because of Jordan Butler that I don't trust Furman. I just think he's like an awful basketball player, but put him at this level and he could suddenly become a force. So I will defer there. Oh, Timmy Kraft and I shot last year, by the way, coach, we all thought was good. We're like, why did he take that? Yeah, he stuck his first year and they were quietly very solid last season. Kai was just going to say Chattanooga. If they're international guys are good, they're going to be really good. And he bought it played in the top German league. I haven't watched any tape on him yet, but that's typically the pedigree of guys that end up on like P5 or P5 adjacent rosters and now he's in the so con. So there's a chance he's like one of the better players in the league. Last year UNC Greensboro and Chattanooga finished outside of the top 300, both for the third time in program history and Kenpon history. So 30 years. So it's like a when it rains in poor situation last year for the so con just just not a good year. Both teams will be better. Although Greensboro with pass. We'll see. We'll see. A son is where we're going next. This league's been chopped down, man. It's the new like like stubby whack all of a sudden Jim. It's got seven teams and league now. I guess Queens is my favorite. I guess Jordan Watford is back. Parker as well. And then it's like Florida Gulf Coast. Lipscomb. Hey, Bellarmons got a bunch of guys back except for Kerasensky. I don't know, man. Seven teams is a really depressing. I got to crack myself, Kai. They do have eight. So if you're going off, we roster dock West Florida. Florida. I forgot they added the Argonauts. Yes. Yes. A great mascot, the Argonauts. Tanner Smith, former Clemson player, former teammate of our ITO. Yeah. It's the new head coach there at West Florida. Yeah, I didn't really know who to call the favorite here, but I think I'm just going to say Queens because Jordan Watford could average like 20 and seven. He's the best player in the conference. There's sophomore point guard, six five, big slasher. I think we talked about it on one of this shows, Kai, where we're just like completely clueless as to how he ended up back here. I think it was a mailbag question. They're like, man, Queens retain him. That guy. He's kind of Alex Wilkins' ask who ended up going firm into Kentucky and instead Queens gets to keep him. Yeah, I know other rosters really popping out. Stetson could be a little more interesting, but like I don't they're not at the top. Florida Gulf Coast usually gets a good amount of talent and chambers did again, but this is not one of his best looking rosters relative to some others that he has not won the league with. But it isn't diminished competition with less teams, fewer teams. So I'm just going to ride Queens, Matthew, and then I would also mention Jacksonville because I think Nemo Turner is going to be a monster. He was incredible down the stretch for Central Arkansas two years ago, went to Minnesota and got completely buried was not a big 10 big man. But if he comes back to the A-Sun conference, he's already dominated and gets featured in that system. He could be like a 17 and a 9 guy in this conference. I have nothing much else to add other than just kind of looking at North Florida's roster. Like, who's the guy? It's going to average 22 and then go get a big bag at Tennessee and it'd be awesome. It seems like a big 10 Jackson. Yeah, probably. It takes 10 threes a game. That seems about it. And they have Jose Placer's little brother, I think, right? That said, water, I think that's correct. Kind of fun. I think so. Yeah. So that's it. Yeah, I probably Queens for me. F-G-C-U, maybe I don't know. Pour one out for the Mac. It's now the Metro. The Metro conference, formerly known as the M-W-A-C or the Mac. I think it's Miramax league now. This is their conference. They are now the, we own the league. We are Miramax. Joe Gallo for my money is probably the, I gotta be careful. The best coach in this league. I'm going to go with that. I agree with you, Kai. Okay, good. Yes. And then it's like kind of everyone else. Rider might be one of the worst teams in the country again. They're just, that's not a D1 program anymore. But like, I want to see Anna, say Peter Slotback, Quinty Piac, Mount St. Mary's, Fairfield. They're all kind of there. Jim Sienna is very intriguing because Nevada Smith takes over, Marquette Assistant, and Pace Prasser, the guy that we watched in person in the D2 national championship. That guy rocks. He is now a Sienna starting point guard. He's going to be very, very fun to watch in this league. Yeah, they, apparently this league scouted the D2 national title game because Quinty Piac also has Lucas Sacasi. Another guy from Ganon was kind of starting point guard also a big like six five six six type big guard. Yeah. I want to see what Nevada Smith does there because of what the offense looked like under shock a smart at Marquette. But I think, I don't know, maybe this is too strong, but I think Maramack has the best coach and the best roster. So they're the clear favorite to me. I like that they retained a couple of starters and added like Anglin. They picked away from my own. I think he was a former Georgetown commit way back in the day. Eli will born. I think we'll have a better season coming back to this level after kind of getting buried for a good James Madison team. Lesburt's a great shooter from Brown that missed all last season. And they don't play a deep rotation. So the fact that they have a bunch of freshmen like players eight through 11 is okay with me. And every year one of those freshmen is better than you expect. Look at, look at Bud Clark, look at Kivair Kennedy last year. Gallows is a really, really good recruiter and evaluator. So it's them for me. Maris still have a great defense. Yeah. That'll be competitive. I don't, I only has like pretty good talent. I just don't know if that's going to be maximized. I still don't know if I agree with the coaching change of the current. There are a couple of years ago. So and then Kai, do you want to talk writer hoops? Kai's writer hoops corner. A team I'll never bet on again, Matthew. But I will, I will try to fade them actively at this season. Who's the best player this year? I don't know. Ty Bevins. You need to play. Bevins got one game. Well, we're supposed to tell you his game. He'll get to take 10 mid-range jumpers in game for a school that's going to close in two years. So what did they, did they win? How many games did they win in this league last year? They won three. Okay. They won three games last year. They beat Iona. That's ridiculous. That's maybe the most area man. I'm serious. Resonance that loss. They shot 27% from three last year, Matt. I think there's, yeah, no doubt it's my, it's like John Dunn, John Gallagher. I think it's terrific coach. His roster is not very good. I think Donny Lynn's a very good coach. His roster is competitive here. But I think that's, that's sort of maybe a dark horseman. They got a, they had a ton of injuries last year. I thought they were starting to play better. Like they really hit the afterburners his first season that kind of propelled into that, that turning birth. And they got some pieces ish there. I think Merrimack just, if they have like close to the best roster, I don't know how you don't just, I'm with Chip. Like, why would you not just bet on that? Because they don't ever have the best roster now. It looks like relative to field they kind of do. Yes. Go Merrimack. Go Warriors. Have they made a tournament yet? No. Don't think so. No, no, they've been, yeah, they've won a tournament. They've done what you're supposed to do to be that they just didn't get there. Okay. Couple leagues left. We're down in the low majors now. OVC, Tennessee State, man. They, they've won the league last year. It's their league again. Nolan Smith has too much talent for this league. Why can't I think of Johnson? Tyler, Tyler Johnson, Tyler and Arturia Morris say what you went about the off the court stuff. They're the two most talented players in this league by a country mile. And they're on my beer and Bradshaw, who's also on their team. Oh, and Aaron Bradshaw also on their team. Like they have the three most talented players in this league by a long shot. So it's Tennessee State, Matt, and your boy Nolan Smith did pretty good last season by making tournament in his first year. We were a little bit worried about him after the Kenny Payne thing and his analytics comments. You got UT Martin Still, Moorhead, CMO, S-I-U-E that all are kind of in the mix behind Tennessee State. And then of course, you lose Tennessee Tech and Little Rock to other conferences. Matthew, the OVC. Yeah, CMO and S-I-U-E, just two really good coaches. I think their talent's good enough to play. You're not going to sharp you in Tennessee State. But I do think the talent cap is like very clearly like Nolan Smith's connections and I guess whatever are certainly starting to separate here from the league that's clearly at the at the drags. I root for UT Martin. Again, I'm a shill for the shulmans. No one knows who's on the roster. Not even he knows. No one ever knows. So like another bajillion freshman. International guy. And he loves the forum players. I mean, they like been healthy last year. Like they could, I mean, what they want at UNLV, they be Bradley. Like this is like actually like, I think they're a, the problems when you get into conference playing, people know what you're doing. You can't like pull out those bags and tricks up your sleeves. So the talent sort of converges and it's hard to like dominate the league at a high level. And that's the top 100 defense last year, UT Martin. Top 100 defense. Really impressive. Length. Yeah, chunky schemes and stuff. Yeah, they're good. Yeah, brought back a couple of pieces from that very, very international heavy and then they add players from Lithuania, Georgia, the country, not the state. North Macedonia, Spain, Russia, Senegal, Turkey, China. Like it's not even like he's picking a region. It's just all over the world. I believe Armand Yovich, the international scouting or discord said that they gave show them like international agent guys gave show them in a couple of players that were like clearly better than OVC because of how well he did with those guys last year. And show them and it's like I'm gonna be the international place. You come here for a year, show out and transfer. That's fine with me. They got Remigan. I think that's how it's pronounced from Georgia Tech who at I think Euro, Fiba, U-20 Euros this off season. He was like maybe the best player there. Just absolutely tore it up. So I want to pick UT Martin. - I'm picking Martin. - Jim, you sold me. Thank you. - Okay. - I'm still in the garage. - I'm going. - Martin. - Tennessee State's talent is just too much. - Yeah, Aaron Redhall should not be playing the OVC. Like what do we do? - There's at least enough proof of concept that Nolan Smith can out talent a conference. And like Tennessee State was first in the league and turnover rate offensively last year. It wasn't like they just did it with all athleticism. They played somewhat competent basketball. I kind of just have to defer and acknowledge that Nolan Smith has a model that can win in this conference. - Yeah, they hung with Belmont last year. They lost by 27 to Alabama and a couple of kinks to work out. - Brittle me that. - Yeah. - Okay, the Patriot is where we head next. Tons of continuity. That's kind of usually the case with this league. It's like the ID lights. Guys tend to stay at these schools. They're good academic schools. A lot of favorites. It's flat for me at the top gym. Like BU, Boston University is a bunch of guys back in the back court. American interns, everybody from the last season. Colgate of course is going to be there, but they do lose Jalen Cox. They probably the best front court in the league. Lehigh lose their best player, but everyone else is back. And you still have Nady. They lose the best two players. Benini and Kaho was the big guy. So they might be a little bit down, but overall it's a league full of continuity. And I would say competitive near the top. - Yeah, I love writing this conference every year because there is continuity. And like the people, they're like op skies are typically quick at getting their rosters up. So you actually know who's on them. It's way more coherent than trying to figure out what every Swack roster is. Apologies to Matt for all of that. Always having to write the Swack. Yeah, last year felt like the one for Nady and it just didn't quite work out with the conference tournament loss and injures gone and or excuse me, Benini's gone. So it was BU and American as I looked at it. I those are the ones I like the most. Colgate, gosh, Langel's develop and dominate strategy has been derailed again by a transfer before he expected it. Typically they just get those guys for four years and that's they rise, they internally develop and they end up really good. And it's just not quite working out for him now. I don't know who their point guard is next year. That is a major, major concern. So I'm going with American with their just incredible continuity that they have back. And Simkins has been pretty solid there in his couple of seasons. And then BU, like you said, Kai, some good contributors, Kyron Alexander got hurt last year early and they still ended up at least somewhat competent. Get him back, he could be a star. Yeah, I like BU, I'm kind of with you. I also like the other BU buck now. I was my other dark horse, I just seems like griffin' concoge and tough year last year. Yeah, I don't, I don't know, what was the, I don't know what happened, I'm confused now. He got ugly last year with you, he got ugly. He had good two first years. Did Matt die? What happened? He's talking about the hatred. Okay. That's how he got hurt. I can realize how they, yeah, they were bad. That's not like it. Kai, you mentioned Lehigh, I think just worth repeating. Like they made me say tournament and return like five of their top six. Hank Alvey's probably the best big man in the conference now. So, and BU did lose, they're starting center to air zone of state. Yeah, they lose Whitlock, Lehigh, he was awesome. Navy won this league by six games last year, that's a lot. I feel so bad, they didn't make the tournament. But they didn't lose my home court. Yeah. Okay, we move on. Swack, I don't have a huge opinion here. I guess the Thune Cookman is probably the favorite because Reggie Theos tends to keep winning the talent war. His team is tend to be the highest talented rosters. Jackson State is a new coach, Matthew. My Williams left to be an assistant. Mike Davis is a new coach at Mississippi Valley State. That's a shocking headline. As usual, lots of rosters have flipped in this league. And I'm going to say a dark horse. Alabama State, Matthew Chris Wright, the new coach there is getting a lot of hype. They also get James from Miss, oh my god. Mississippi Valley State, Michael James was arguably the best player in the league last year and he was on Valley. He's really good. And now he's an Alabama State. That's my dark horse. No, it's BCU. I just think that to me, the talent is very clearly a cut above. I kind of look to Alabama A&M, like Don T. Jack. You had kind of to read. All these, there's been like a musical chair situation. I was like, wait, so Don T. Jackson was awesome at crambling. He's like the big guy whisperer and he goes to Alabama A&M. Okay, like they have a decent roster. That's like the other dark horse I wrote down. But, it's BCU or post for me, sorry. Yeah, there's some fun, maybe not for the casual fan, but fun storylines here with Mississippi Valley State potentially being competent. Yep, just Davis is the best coach they've had and brought in like a decent-ish staff as well. Not sure what kind of players they'll be able to fill out the roster with. Then Texas Southern, typically a power in this conference. They're like board of administrators, whatever, just rejected the coach that they were trying to hire, like that is a complete mess. Wow. I think that happened two years ago with Crary at Florida A&M or they gave him like a one-year deal and that's why he got out of there in a hurry and got a better job in the conference. Also, agree, Matt. I was very intrigued by the Don T. Jackson Alabama A&M potential there. Maybe the roster isn't like quite as good as Bethune Cuckman's, but I think the coaching edge could lean their way. But yeah, this does feel a little OVCS with Tennessee State's talent advantage. That's kind of what Bethune Cuckman has. And the rest of the roster are still being filled out and figuring out who they are. So hard to have two strong to take other than like, how is that a Swack roster? It's been one league by three games last year. They have still never made a tournament, though, in their entire history, which I think dates back to like the early 80s. I just like how Thius, like he's explicitly said, oh, yeah, I like being like the guy where damage goods come home. So he likes taking gammals on talent with Beth. It's like he's a good strategy at a lower school. Yeah. Well, it should be matching, Kerry. I think that's a decent roster they have at a Grand League. Yeah, it's a Grand League now. Yeah, it's so confusing. I'm thinking of a 4-D A&M. I used to like Grand League because they had a good coach in Don T. Jackson, though. But Jackson left, but they also still have a good coach for it. You just thought it was a 4-D A&M. Who's in the Miyak? OK. America East is where we're going next. Liz League was so bad last year. Oh my gosh, just a tri-- Bryant was like the worst thing they've ever had. Binghamton was-- how was Binghamton bad last year? Quigley and Lilly are two of the best players in this league. And they stunk. The favorites, it's Vermont and UMBC, once again. Vermont has the Gus Busback. Yepdo from UMass Low, I believe, is a really good ad at Point Guard. And UMBC's got Flash Burton. He's a solid player, despite how bad Rider was. Flash Burton can play a little bit, especially in the American East. Jim, Maine was horrible last year, and Markwood's been generally good. Lot of really bad teams last season. It's Vermont and UMBC at the top. Yeah, this was just an abomination of a year for the conference. To go down to 30th in Kenpoms rankings and be below the NEC and the SWAC, it's just a real problem. And we'll get there. Yeah, I just jarring how bad this conference was. But I think we get the reassertion of the John Becker dominance this year. I like the off-season. Last year, they had a little bit of money, and they gave it to Lucas Mari, the Spanish Point Guard, who was just not good, and went back to Spain. And I don't think any Vermont fan is really going to miss him this year. They had some injury problems as well last season, but now it's Gus Bus with a better Point Guard. Some more continuity around him. I think John Broom is a nice low usage connector type that they can have from that boy, Richie Riley, it's South Alabama. And Glasgow was always getting hype at Loyola under Drew Valentine. I never really broke out, but that could be a nice by-law. Yeah, Kai, going through roster, like, oh, Binghamton. Yeah, they should be good, but oh my God, why were they so bad? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. It's really hard to figure. I mean, they were, like, bottom six in the entire country. So yeah, it's Vermont, and then a general rising tide lifting all boats, but not still not like a good conference. Yeah. Yeah, like UMBC, UMass Low actually had a couple of nice little transfers, I didn't hate. Yeah, just sort of a met behind Vermont, I think, just giving what they've shown there. You know, Maine's intriguing, though. Maine sort of has the Vermont blueprint. I think the roster is-- like not talented, but like at least average to a slightly above average talent for this list league. And Mark would've done a lot more with less before. So hard and swag, baby, a swag. So I did say 22 leaks. It's 23 leaks we're talking about today because I did forget to write down the NAC. But that's who we're going to talk about right now. I have two words for you Jim. Fins up. There you go. There you go. L.A.U. like Tennessee State like Bethun Cookman. The talent advantage in this league is monstrous. Jekai Howard, the airplane guy at Auburn who didn't play at all you saw. He's like a top 50 recruit. He's on this team. He'll probably be good in this league. Declan Davis, Vashon Olet. They have power five guys in their roster in the NAC. So L.A.U. is the clear favorite. Central Connecticut is probably right in the next right behind them. And then as a reminder, this league has Chicago State. They added New Haven and Mercyhurst for the last couple of years. And St. Francis dropped down to D2. Matthew, what do you think of the NAC? Yeah, I guess L.A.U. I mean, I did this preview last year. I really badly struggled. Yeah, I don't know who else you can go besides L.A.U. like they were almost 100 spots higher than everybody else last year. It's kind of jaded by the Central Connecticut weird thing or they just didn't play any defense after playing a lot of defense. You're really awesome. Get key guys. But yeah, I mean Wagner could be plucky under McMillan. I don't know. I just think that's a weird situation. I want L.A.U. I had nothing else even like intrigued me to be honest. Yep. L.A.U. is the most talented team here. You really have like, we always talk about reclamation projects. So it's chemistry going to be a problem. Like Dequan Davis, Vashonalette and Jekai Howard could end up in three fist fights this season. It wouldn't really shock me. And that could be on the court over the basketball like Trish who gets to hold it more often. But they still could win the conference even with that stuff happening. This is kind of where they are as an edge, both athletically and just overall talent. And I kept like last year I was stubborn and did not think L.A.U. would win. So it's like, oh, I want to see Strickland do it before I give him like they say he can do it and he did last year. So he cannot talent this conference. It's definitely possible. I don't really have a great second contender either. Depends that you think of like Lemoine's transfer class coming in there is that one that's going to actually let them rise up and contend Mercyhurst has a pretty good class as well. But it's probably L.A.U. It's just as long as Vashonalette doesn't shoot 24% from the field like he did at T.C.U. he should be fine. Agreed. Chargers Lancers nights. A lot of a similar themed team names there in this league. It sounds like my Catholic grade school conference. Like we were the chargers and there were definitely Lancers in the end time. Okay, last but not least, although it was the worst conference in the country last year. The Mi'ac Norfolk and Howard. It's their league. Norfolk has two absolute studs in the back court returning. They're my favorite this year. But Howard was top 200 last season and they do a three guys back in that roster. They ran away with the league last season by far the best team in the conference. I guess you can call Cop and say a bit of a dark horse gym but they were 363rd in the country last year. I just kind of like their roster relatively on paper in the offseason here. And I have no clue what the Val Modeen is doing at NC Central. That was a team that was annually right there with Norfolk and Howard in this league and they were really bad last season. So Norfolk who's home to go with. And not just last season. Last two NC Central. That's a lot more humble. And yeah, I remember him having the excuse during COVID that we couldn't practice and they were really bad. We were five years removed from that and that was an atrocity last season. But Norfolk state also was worse than I thought. They should have been last year. Yeah. Robert Jones, a guy we were very high on in the low major coaching rankings and just kind of dipped down last year. I guess that's the risk you run when you do recycle the roster and take some talent gambles like they do every season. But they bring back James and McComb. That's big time. I have a couple of decent incoming transfers. So they would be my favorite. Howard lost a lot of them. Yeah, that was that was my big that was my big bummer. Norfolk worst in Kampon history gym in their in their program history. Last shocking really shocking considering the roster wasn't that bad. Like it wasn't like they were devoid of talent. Hamgillis could maybe end up being the best player in the conference who's more of like a deferral point guard for Howard last year but could rise into a bigger scoring role. And Maryland Eastern Shore if Cleo Hills like D2 revolution takes hold that could be like a dark horse to finish two or three in the sleep. But yeah, I don't. Man, SC states just like unconventional style like the high pressure stuff. I like Martin. I just don't think I got a little bit of the press Virginia to him. They bring back Mitchell Taylor who was very good at SC state and then didn't play at UNC Asheville. I don't know. That's kind of squinting and trying hard to find somebody other than Howard and Norfolk state. Yeah, but Howard was gutted man. Like I got didn't even Norfolk. This is the year you're going to bet on like just to a UMass or a SC state. I think it would be this season. I still think Norfolk would be my pick just by default their talent. But like talent worst roster. They've had like five years. I think at least how many coaches have the best Kampon rank and the worst Kampon rank in their team's history in Kampon. Robert Jones has that Norfolk. Yeah, what was the worst? Yeah, well, Greg Kampy does. I guess. Yeah. Kampy. Randy Bennett might. I don't know. Kai, I have one other one for you that you will never guess. Oh, no, it's almost but not quite. Kelvin Samson has a 2/14th and obviously a four times second finish at Houston. But they do have another year where they were 2/20th and 2/29th. So almost the worst Houston Kampon rank. Hard to fathom these days. Yeah. Okay. That was our mid major extravaganza. We hope you all enjoyed it. We went through 23 leagues. And then next couple weeks, we're we're hitting previews. We're going to hit the WCC, the pack 12. The pack 12. It's back. And then the power leagues and the American and the A10 as well. We're excited. It's almost college basketball. It's almost college with ball season, which means it's almost college basketball season. We're very excited about that. We'll see you next week. It's most likely on Sunday. We will communicate to you though if that changes. Till then, enjoy your work week. Have fun. And of course, look forward to college basketball. Cheers. [Music] [Music]