(01-30-2023 06:37 PM)Eagleholic Wrote:  

(01-30-2023 04:50 PM)BirdofParadise Wrote:  

(01-30-2023 04:33 PM)rileylives Wrote:  For the OG Sun Belt teams, why Pensacola? Just curious if the conference gets a deal from the city or whatnot.

And now that the teams have settled in, do we think we want to continue holding it in Pensacola?

When the decision was made to get the tournament out of New Orleans, interested cities were invited to bid. Pensacola showed the best interest. This will be the third year of a five year deal. In a perfect world, the league would have basketball and baseball in the same city, but the Blue Wahoos (minor league club in Pensacola) couldn't or wouldn't clear the dates the league needed. The Montgomery Biscuits were willing to do it. Also a five year deal with year three in 2023.

Pensacola has done a good job of promotion of the tournament. And, for the first time last year, we saw that the tournament actually had some local support with attendance.

In my opinion, we keep it in Pensacola, especially if we can move baseball there as well. There are worse destination cities for a tournament.

Baseball would likely be well attended if it was played at the home of the Biloxi Shuckers.

Perhaps. But Biloxi wasn't interested because CUSA had their tournament there. But I'm all in on having Pensacola for both hoops and baseball.

(01-31-2023 11:18 AM)BirdofParadise Wrote:  

(01-30-2023 06:37 PM)Eagleholic Wrote:  

(01-30-2023 04:50 PM)BirdofParadise Wrote:  

(01-30-2023 04:33 PM)rileylives Wrote:  For the OG Sun Belt teams, why Pensacola? Just curious if the conference gets a deal from the city or whatnot.

And now that the teams have settled in, do we think we want to continue holding it in Pensacola?

When the decision was made to get the tournament out of New Orleans, interested cities were invited to bid. Pensacola showed the best interest. This will be the third year of a five year deal. In a perfect world, the league would have basketball and baseball in the same city, but the Blue Wahoos (minor league club in Pensacola) couldn't or wouldn't clear the dates the league needed. The Montgomery Biscuits were willing to do it. Also a five year deal with year three in 2023.

Pensacola has done a good job of promotion of the tournament. And, for the first time last year, we saw that the tournament actually had some local support with attendance.

In my opinion, we keep it in Pensacola, especially if we can move baseball there as well. There are worse destination cities for a tournament.

Baseball would likely be well attended if it was played at the home of the Biloxi Shuckers.

Perhaps. But Biloxi wasn't interested because CUSA had their tournament there. But I'm all in on having Pensacola for both hoops and baseball.

Something significant happened between then and now.

On the downside, there were some administrative $$$ issues with the folks in Biloxi that I think caused CUSA to move the tourney away from there.

(01-31-2023 10:55 AM)Stat Geek Wrote:  Way late to the party, but Im surprised that people are unfamiliar with college basketball as a whole now. Maybe 10 years ago a Sunbelt team would have an outside chance of an at large bid, but there is almost no chance today. We might be lucky to get a couple NIT teams.

As a rough gauge, by Kenpom rankings, you gotta be around top 50. (North Texas was 57 last year). Right now Marshall is 76. The committee may put FAU in the tourney and I think if they do put FAU or Charleston in, its even less likely they put in an at large Sun Belt team.

You keep coming in and arguing something no one else is arguing for. I don't see anyone talking about the Sun Belt getting a second bid. Last time like one person in a thread of 4 pages did. But, every thread you come in making sure that everyone knows Sun Belt wont get a second team in like it's some kind of mission of yours.

(01-31-2023 12:20 PM)Eagleyed Wrote:  

(01-31-2023 10:55 AM)Stat Geek Wrote:  Way late to the party, but Im surprised that people are unfamiliar with college basketball as a whole now. Maybe 10 years ago a Sunbelt team would have an outside chance of an at large bid, but there is almost no chance today. We might be lucky to get a couple NIT teams.

As a rough gauge, by Kenpom rankings, you gotta be around top 50. (North Texas was 57 last year). Right now Marshall is 76. The committee may put FAU in the tourney and I think if they do put FAU or Charleston in, its even less likely they put in an at large Sun Belt team.

You keep coming in and arguing something no one else is arguing for. I don't see anyone talking about the Sun Belt getting a second bid. Last time like one person in a thread of 4 pages did. But, every thread you come in making sure that everyone knows Sun Belt wont get a second team in like it's some kind of mission of yours.

some were early when the NET rankings first came out (with the if factor being they'd have to run the table or 1 good loss with a loss in the conference tourney final) ... we all know it isn't going to happen now...

that's why nobody is talking about it and why hypotheticals are "big ifs"...

(01-31-2023 12:20 PM)Eagleyed Wrote:  

(01-31-2023 10:55 AM)Stat Geek Wrote:  Way late to the party, but Im surprised that people are unfamiliar with college basketball as a whole now. Maybe 10 years ago a Sunbelt team would have an outside chance of an at large bid, but there is almost no chance today. We might be lucky to get a couple NIT teams.

As a rough gauge, by Kenpom rankings, you gotta be around top 50. (North Texas was 57 last year). Right now Marshall is 76. The committee may put FAU in the tourney and I think if they do put FAU or Charleston in, its even less likely they put in an at large Sun Belt team.

You keep coming in and arguing something no one else is arguing for. I don't see anyone talking about the Sun Belt getting a second bid. Last time like one person in a thread of 4 pages did. But, every thread you come in making sure that everyone knows Sun Belt wont get a second team in like it's some kind of mission of yours.

There were literally people in this thread talking about an at large bid.

(01-31-2023 12:40 PM)Stat Geek Wrote:  

(01-31-2023 12:20 PM)Eagleyed Wrote:  

(01-31-2023 10:55 AM)Stat Geek Wrote:  Way late to the party, but Im surprised that people are unfamiliar with college basketball as a whole now. Maybe 10 years ago a Sunbelt team would have an outside chance of an at large bid, but there is almost no chance today. We might be lucky to get a couple NIT teams.

As a rough gauge, by Kenpom rankings, you gotta be around top 50. (North Texas was 57 last year). Right now Marshall is 76. The committee may put FAU in the tourney and I think if they do put FAU or Charleston in, its even less likely they put in an at large Sun Belt team.

You keep coming in and arguing something no one else is arguing for. I don't see anyone talking about the Sun Belt getting a second bid. Last time like one person in a thread of 4 pages did. But, every thread you come in making sure that everyone knows Sun Belt wont get a second team in like it's some kind of mission of yours.

There were literally people in this thread talking about an at large bid.

8 pages ago one guy asked if it was possible. Everyone replied no it's pretty much impossible. Asking if it's possible is certainly not claiming that someone will get a bid. No one is arguing for that. Yet every few basketball threads we have people come in and want to make sure that everyone knows that Sun Belt basketball sucks and we aren't getting a bid. But, no one is arguing that we will.

I don't think the Sun Belt conference sucks. I am very happy to be in the conference and I believe the basketball will continue to get better as the schools allocate more attention to basketball. It is a one bid conference like almost every mid major.

That is completely separate from how the committee members have made it way more difficult for mid majors to get at large bids.

I have no idea where you are coming from.

(01-22-2023 09:27 PM)lcitsh Wrote:  You need to mark the thread as a men's program discussion if that's all you want discussed.

Women:

1. James Madison - top women's team and I like their schedule the rest of the way.
2. Southern Mississippi - already beaten Troy and winnable schedule the rest of the way.
3. Troy - road games at Texas State, Louisiana and Southern Mississippi will make it tough to stay in the top 3, but rest of the schedule should keep them top 4.
4. 4 way tie for 4th right now. I like Old Dominion to come out of that pack.

Men:

3 teams at 6-2, 3 teams at 5-3. These are your top contenders, at the moment.

1. Louisiana - Cajuns have the easiest road to the title...7 home games, 4 against title contenders
2. Southern Mississippi - 5 home, 5 road, 3 contenders at home, 1 road.
3. Marshall - Herd play the 3rd place teams at home and have only 1 road against a contender.

With the schedules these teams have, it will be difficult for them to mess this up. They should be in the top 4.

4. Troy, Georgia Southern and ULM are the 5-3 teams. Georgia Southern has no home games against contenders and are playing the top 3 teams on the road. Goodbye. ULM has Troy at home and the top 3 on the road. Goodbye. Troy has 2 home, 3 road against contenders. I like their chances of getting in the top 4, but there is a good chance they may be caught by a 4-4 team, James Madison most likely. For the moment, I'll side with Troy for top 4.

Ok, so now that the regular season is done, I can look back at these predictions and see how I did.

Women:

Sure enough, James Madison, Southern Mississippi and Troy stayed in the top 4, but I got Old Dominion wrong and Texas State got ahead of them, Troy, and Southern Mississippi.

Men:

Eagles, Cajuns and Herd remained consistent, Troy could not so James Madison moved passed them for the top 4.

It's interesting to see that, when this thread started, we were not even halfway through the conference season. 3 of the 4 in each sport separated themselves from the rest of the conference early and stayed strong as the season progressed. I'd like to think that this is a pretty strong indicator of who will be playing for the conference championship. We'll find out soon.

If USA had beaten Louisiana then I would've gotten the men's exactly right. Instead I got the right four teams in the wrong order like a few others did. I got the #1 right, but my #4 got #2 and bumped my 2/3 to 3/4.

The women I got three out of four, again with only #1 in the right spot. My #2 is #4 and my #4 is #3. I had Georgia Southern in there at #3, but TXST got in and got the #2. I thought GS would have more success after seeing them beat us at home, but I guess they just had our number as the only SBC team to go undefeated against the Dukes. They did tie for fourth at least, just ended up #6 with the tiebreakers... We can't meet them until the final, not sure if I want them to stumble before then or if I want to get revenge for the sweep.

(01-22-2023 03:22 PM)Saint3333 Wrote:  App gets hot and sneaks in the top four.

Just kidding we all know this team goes .500 in the conference and then upsets 1 or 2 teams in the tournament ensuring the SBC rep is 2-3 seeds lower than we'd like, it's just what we do.

Nailed the .500, but don’t think we can hang with USA.