(01-22-2016 10:33 AM)MinerInWisconsin Wrote: Will it be stronger? How young is your MBB team? UTEP, for one, should be much better next year if our coach can finally stabilize his roster. With a strong set of traditionally good basketball teams, smart scheduling by all, this conference really should become a multiple bid conference. That alone would make up for the shortfall in tv money coming up.
I agree. We should definitely be a conference with multiple bids to the tournament with the pedigree of programs that we have. It's just messed up that so many are down at the same time. Still, I'm cautiously optimistic. Never say that things can't get worse, but I think things will be better next year based off the games I've watched that featured our conference mates.
No offense to any Marshall fans, but I haven't expected anything from them in basketball for a good while until they went on that run. They're reminiscent of a lot of C-USA teams in how prolific they can be on any given night, but when you rely on the three that much you're bound to have bad nights even if the score doesn't reflect as much. I like their play, though.
Middle Tennessee is still one of the top teams in the conference and they have looked solid in every one of their games I've looked at. The drop off at La. Tech was to be expected, but I expect them to get better, too. UTEP and Charlotte won't be down long. Southern Miss is still in recovery mode so I probably won't expect much from them in a while. I don't think Rice is as bad as their record indicates. Their main problem is that they seem to take too many jump shots. If they slowed the game down, played bigger, and let their free throw shooting (and Evans) carry them then they'll be much better.
I don't really have much to go on with the Florida schools, North Texas, and UTSA. I haven't caught any of their games.
My main concerns for next year are with WKU and ODU. I don't even know what happened to WKU. They straight up got smashed in everyone of their games that I looked at it. There are a lot of things they need to work on but it's more of a team issue kind of thing. ODU, on the other hand, is going to lose one of the best players in the conference in Freeman. I don't really see how they're going to fill the void he leaves behind, but I hope the ODU fans have some answers.