(03-18-2012 05:31 PM)mubear Wrote: Great Win!! Should help down line in recruiting too. Hope we get back to playing them again.
So wait, it won't be weaker. This was by far the most down this league has ever been, no matter how many teams have come and gone over the years. The league may have been weaker in the early 80's, maybe. And we lose the best team in the league, but we won't be weaker?? Somebody has to win the games and have a good record, it doesn't mean the talent level is high. Your an ETSU fan. Since you have been in the conference, your best players have gone to nice professional careers overseas, like many of the top players in the conference. Watch how many from this years teams end up playing overseas. Not near as many. How many guys on ETSU will this year?? The talent level has dropped significantly. Records won't. Now the competiveness will be high and we have some great young coaches on the rise. It will be a fun league to watch and follow still, especially as we have more like-minded schools and budgets. But I will argue that this year was weak and next year will be weaker for those that have followed the league for a while.
Let's make things simple for you: you claim that the league will be weaker next year. My response is that only the loss of Belmont significantly weakens the league. Most of the teams in the league should be better next year than this. Let's look at the facts.
I'll assume that you won't be so foolish as to claim that FGCU, USCU, Mercer and UNF, returning almost all key players, are likely to be weaker next year. That's 4 out of 10 teams.
Kennesaw, Stetson and Lipscomb set the bar low enough that they are also unlikely to be weaker next year. They were bad enough, that it should not be too hard to show some improvement next year. And Kennesaw has a pretty good looking list of 6 recruits, led by 6'7" Brandon Williams, ranked 88 by ESPN. Of the 3 teams, only Lipscomb loses a few important players. Those losses should be outweighed by the development of talented young recruits.
That's 7 out of 10 teams which are unlikely to be "weaker" next year.
That leaves Jacksonville and ETSU. Jacksonville started badly, but finished well. They lose a couple of rotation players, but seemed to have found a reliable scorer in Aloys Cabell by years end. Recruiting has also been good, led by Jarvis Haywood, another ESPN ranked 88. Only ETSU loses more talent than they have coming in, although there is highly rated bench talent (Lester Wilson, Rashawn Rembert and John Walton) that either redshirted or was little used. I'd bet on Jacksonville fielding a team that will do at least as well next year, and perhaps better. They are unlikely to be "weaker". ETSU has too many question marks to be a good bet. Analysts will definitely pick them to be weaker. But overall they were only mediocre this year.
Which brings me back to my point - the only thing which makes the league significantly weaker next year is the loss of Belmont, which won't be as good anyway with the graduation of both post players, Hedgepeth and Saunders, and point guard Drew Hanlen.