(03-02-2019 07:10 PM)lion1983 Wrote: What are your thoughts of the regular season? Men and women.
Who was the biggest disappointment?
Biggest surprise?
What is the trajectory of the conference?
Any and all opinions, good and bad appreciated.
I'm just going to do men because I don't really follow the women.
Biggest Disappointment: Florida Gulf Coast - First things first, I was not familiar with the A-SUN prior to Liberty joining, so the only thing I was familiar with was FGCU's big performance from a few seasons ago in the tournament. For them to finish tied for 3rd at 9-7 in the conference and 14-17 overall feels like a letdown to their reputation. I assume they are young and are replacing a lot of starters.
Biggest Surprise: NJIT/North Alabama - My perception of NJIT prior to this year is a school that no conference wanted until the A-SUN got desperate enough to invite due to needing numbers. They used to be independent (I think) which is unheard of for basketball. They are practically an outcast for the conference but they vastly overperformed any expectations to win 20 games. I do have to give props to North Alabama who is transitioning from Division II and for them to win any games is impressive. Winning 10 games overall, and finishing in the middle of the pack for the conference is impressive.
Conference Trajectory: Steady - This is really hard for me to determine. First of all, the conference is SO different that last year with two new schools (Liberty, UNA) and without the Big South defection. I'm not familiar with the history of the conference so I can't speak to how it performed in the past. But when a Division II school comes in and wins almost half of their conference games, that isn't a good look. The non-conference performance of the A-SUN was not good as only three four were above .500 with most vastly below. Postseason play will really determine if the conference is improving, to me at least. If our representative does well in the NCAA or does well in the NIT and CBI/CIT, maybe I'll feel a little better.
To qualify for being on the upswing, I would say the conference would have to do one of the following:
- Win an NCAA tournament game and make it to the round of 32.
- Have two NCAA tournament teams.
- Have five teams (over half the conference) make the postseason.
I don't know what our metrics are as far as how the conference ranks against others whether it is NET, or S&P+, Massey, etc. If we were in the top half of all conferences, that would be a real step up from our historical position.