The SoCon is weak this year, with 8-7 Mercer the only thing close to a strong team.

MERCER 8-7

They got the only thing close to a signature win in the entire women’s SoCon beating Florida at home in Macon – but Florida is 4-11, so maybe not so big a deal! And they lost at home to 4-9 Columbia. They rely almost entirely on 5 players who get 27 to 35 minutes. A few other players get some minutes (17, 13 and 11) but nobody outside the top 5 gets more than 3.0 points or 2.5 rebounds a game. Keke Calloway is having a POY season with 19.0 points, 5 rebounds and 4.8 assists.

FURMAN 8-7

Played a pretty weak schedule, losing to 4-10 DII North Greeneville and 4-10 Kennesaw. “Big” wins are over 6-6 Gardner Webb and 5-7 UNC Asheville.

WOFFORD 8-7

Another SoCon team with a fairly weak schedule, losing on the road to 2-10 Presbyterian and 5-7 UNC Asheville. Lost to Appy State. “Big” win is at home over 6-6 Gardner-Webb.

They are by far the highest scoring team in the SoCon with 74.5 – second best is 66.1! Mercer is at 64.9. They are the best shooting team in the SoCon with a .331 3pt % and .732 FT%. They are 2nd in FG% Defense with .397 and 2nd in 3pt% Defense with .267. Chloe Wannink is in the POY discussion with 17.5 points and 4.3 rebounds.

UNCG 6-9

Losses to Mid Major teams include a home loss to 8-5 Coastal Carolina in OT, and road losses to 9-3 Campbell and 8-4 High Point.
“Big” wins are at home over 4-10 Liberty and at a neutral site to 7-5 Eastern Michigan.

They are strong defensively leading the SoCon in 3pt % Defense at .231 and FG% Defense at .363. Also lead in rebounding margin at +2.8. Egyptian Nadine Soliman is making her own claim for POY with 18.7 points and 7.7 rebounds. They may be the team most likely to challenge Mercer.

CHATTANOOGA 5-10

Played a fairly tough Mid Major schedule. Lost at home to 8-5 Belmont, 9-4 UT Martin, 10-6 South Dakota State and 10-3 Central Michigan. Won at neutral sites over 9-6 Maine and 5-9 St. Louis.
10 players are averaging 14 minutes or better as new coach Katie Burrows searches for players to rebuild around Lakelyn Bouldin, Brooke Burns and Shelby Davenport.

SAMFORD 4-10

Road loss to 9-4 UT Martin. “Big” wins are at home over 2-10 Presbyterian and on the road over 10-7 Denver in OT.

WESTERN CAROLINA 3-11

Only D1 wins are over 4-8 USC Upstate in OT and over 5-7 Winthrop. Lost to Appy State.

ETSU 2-14

It’s hard to grasp how brutal the women’s schedule turned out to be this year. It looked tough to start with, featuring 6 high majors (Tennessee, Michigan State, South Carolina, Cincinnati, Rutgers and Houston) and not one sub-D1 team (no Southern Wesleyan, no Hiwassee, no Reinhardt). But it also packed in 6 top mid majors from strong conferences: 11-2 Troy and 12-1 South Alabama (conqueror of Alabama, Southern Miss and New Mexico State) both at the top of the Sun Belt; solid A10 member 7-7 Duquesne; from Conference USA Western Kentucky; tied for 1st in Big South Radford (conqueror of Virginia) and High Point (8-4). So out of 16 games, there were maybe 4 winnable games. In those games ETSU went 2-2, beating Appy State (conqueror of UNCG and Wofford) and North Carolina A&T. They lost on the road to 5-7 UNC Asheville (who beat Wofford and Western Carolina, but lost to Mercer and Furman). And they did have one bad loss at home to 4-10 Liberty, 86-89 (Liberty lost to Chattanooga and UNCG).

Nobody else in the SoCon played a schedule as tough. But no matter how tough the schedule, going 2-14 can be pretty soul crushing. Coach Ezell and the team face a tough job, building the confidence and winning attitude needed to grind out conference victories. But in a weak SoCon, it’s not impossible to turn things around.

The Bucs rank at the bottom of too many statistical categories: 3 pt%, 3pt% defense, FG% defense, free throw%, scoring defense, next to last in rebounding margin.

Thanks for the wrap up. I looked at the Bucs schedule and figured the toughness was a reason for the record. Definitely a challenging one. I didn't realize how seemingly weak the rest of the conference is this year. Maybe the tough schedule will help(?)
And on a side note, what's the deal with the long layoff between non-conference and the start of conference season? Two weeks?

From one alumni, fan, and season ticket holder's perspective on the extremely slow start, that while yes indeed the tough scheduling may have caught up with us this a bit year, it appears to me this years crop of Bucs are extremely out of shape, slow and dare I say it, a bit too heavy. For D-1 scholarship athletes the conditioning level of this squad isn't where you would typically expect it or where it needs to be. There is a difference between the college versions of Ronald "Popeye" Jones and Charles "The Round Mound of Rebound" Barkley and our version of forwards and post players, a big difference(maybe too big).


Hopefully the tough scheduling and the seemingly weaker than usual SoCon will help the Lady Bucs be competitive, Additionally to your point frankenheimer, maybe a little of the 2 week layoff has hopefully been spent on conditioning.