USA opens up as a 1 point favorite over JMU.

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Today was a good day for the Dukes but an awful day for the potential for a Sun Belt win in the NCAA tourney. Louisiana and JMU may be able squeeze out a 14 seed but USA and Texas State are probably 15+. I used to be vehemently against expanding the NCAA tournament but if expansion would guarantee spots for conference regular season champs, I'm for it at this point. It may actually put more excitement back into the regular season. The way these one bid leagues are now, one bad 4 minute stretch in the tourney ends your season (despite three months of results), USM was tied with 7:30 to go and down by 16 by the 3:30 mark. Three months of work erased in four minutes, what a wild sport!

Every conference should be given at least two spots in the NCAA. But we all know an increase in numbers will go to a whole p5 conference getting in over legit teams with solid records.

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Really glad Louisiana won the tournament. We needed a better representative than a South Alabama team that, while playing well now, didn’t have an impressive season. LaLa should rep the SBC well.

The final looked like a great crowd and environment. Its a nearby venue for USA and ULL. My guess is a lot of the west teams would be opposed to moving the tourney.

Teams with similar NETs (Hofstra and Furman) are on the 13/14 lines in the bracket projections. I could see Louisiana being competitive if they can snag a 13/14, especially with the parity that is going to exist after about the top 4/5 teams.

(03-06-2023 09:12 PM)JMURocks Wrote:  The final looked like a great crowd and environment. Its a nearby venue for USA and ULL. My guess is a lot of the west teams would be opposed to moving the tourney.

Yeah I think it's a pretty good location honestly. It's far for us but we're not the center of our conference anymore. It's an easy trip for quite a few teams, and for the others it's an attractive spot. I think/hope our fans will travel a lot better next year, and Marshall fans traveled extremely well.

I'd be perfectly happy with keeping it here, or maybe with some alternating east/west location every other year.