Looking back on it after a couple of seasons (or however long it has been), the Sun Belt's kicking us out was one of the best things that could have happened to us. Sort of like getting fired if you are the basketball coach at Texas or Alabama.
We certainly would not have competed in the new sbc. And travel would still be eating up our budget. Moving from a 1 bid league to another seemed ok to me especially knowing we had one of, if not, the highest budgets in the OVC. But schools with much smaller budgets kicked our ass last year and this year.
The thing I hate most about the SBC and why I'm glad we left is that since our great 2016 season, the conference regular season champion hasn't won in the sunbelt tournament (not including the 2020 cancelled year, although who knows if we really could've won that year). So, the team that goes into the NCAA tournament is now just getting crushed by whomever they draw and they can only get a 14-15 seed at best.
This year could be a 2-bid year since App St., Troy, and JMU are so good but wouldn't count money on it given the current trend in selections and the SunBelt tournament 'curse'
I like the OVC so far. It feels like the top 4-5 teams are just a step ahead of the others and at least one of the top 2 gets into the conference championship.