Good Sunday morning:
Continuing Hoopville’s preseason look at conferences:
- The MAC always is good enough to be respected, yet its own beat up on each other too much to make national noise. Still, the league has been knocking on the door the last two years with a pair of top 10 RPI finishes. Ohio University is among several teams positioned to help the MAC make some national rumblings this year, while Akron, Eastern Michigan, Northern Illinois plus two-time defending conference tournament winner Buffalo all have enough talent to ensure the parity that this league is known for.
- The MEAC is a conference with room for upward mobility, and nowhere is that better displayed than Howard-12-20 a year ago-being the favorite in the league’s preseason poll. The Bison return the conference’s top player in James Daniel; now, his team’s improvement rests on a return to health this year for a number of players who were injured last year. Also worth watching is South Carolina State, two-time defending tourney champion Hampton, and North Carolina Central, which had an off season last year but under coach LaVelle Moton it’s hard to expect that again.
- You can tell in the projections: people really, really want to pick someone other than Wichita State to win the Missouri Valley this year. Here’s some free advice: don’t. The Shockers are still the team to beat here, partly because too many league teams lost too much talent to mount a serious challenge to them, but also because there is plenty in the cupboard yet even after Ron Baker and Fred VanVleet completed their careers. Markis McDuffie is poised to be one of the next stars in a league that is looking for them after nine of the 10 players on its all-MVC first and second teams have departed. Other than Wichita, don’t count out Northern Iowa, either, and Illinois State will be stubborn as usual, too.
- San Diego State is the prohibitive favorite in the Mountain West, which has taken a long, quick fall the last couple years as a number of contending programs have taken some strange dips. The Aztecs are a known quality, but few others are. That could change soon if Nevada keeps on its upward track under Eric Musselman; in fact, don’t be surprised if the Wolf Pack with the talented Cameron Oliver inside are this year’s Fresno State, as the Bulldogs were last year to SDSU.
Side Dishes
- Notable exhibition results from Saturday: Butler handled Saginaw Valley State (Mich.) 77-50, the same team that played Michigan State within 10 points. Indiana took care of Bellarmine (Ky.) 73-49, Gonzaga rolled up a 122-76 win over West Georgia, Xavier topped Ferris State (Mich.) 80-56, St. Bonaventure ran over Alfred (N.Y.) 99-72, Houston defeated N.C.-Pembroke 94-67 and Valparaiso got by Hillsdale (Mich.) 78-63.
- Also, as far as Division I teams losing or getting major scares, there were plenty of those, too: Duquesne lost to Division II Mansfield (Pa.) 79-74, Maine was beaten by Division III Maine-Fort Kent 80-75, Georgia Tech needed overtime to edge Shorter (Ga.) 95-87, Cal State-Fullerton edged St. Martin’s (Wash.) 70-67 and Western Kentucky needed two overtimes to get by longtime D-II power Kentucky Wesleyan 103-97.
Today’s Menu
- Among the exhibition games are Kentucky hosting Asbury (Ky.), Walsh (Ohio) at Ohio Satate, Mount Olive (N.C.) at UNC-Wilmington, Alaska-Fairbanks at Boise State, Carroll (Mont.) at Washington State and Georgetown (Ky.) at Eastern Kentucky.
Have a relaxing Sunday.
