You know all about the Power 5 conferences in college basketball. You hear about those more than any other, and those groups often dominate the March Madness conversation. There are 26 other conferences out there, however, and our goal is to get you up to speed on the teams, players and fights in the standings to know before the conference tournaments, Selection Sunday and the official start of March Madness.
It’s time for you to get to know a mid-major: this time, it’s the Southern Conference.
The Southern Conference is an old one, forming all the way back in 1921. It remains entirely in the southern United States, with schools in Alabama, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia. There are 10 teams in the conference — 11 in the 2026-2027 academic year — and all 10 of them will make the men’s and women’s basketball conference tournaments.
Fun Southern Conference fact: it was the first conference to implement the 3-point line and shot in college basketball, all the way back in 1980. And another fun Southern Conference fact: there are 365 men’s college basketball teams in Division I, and just 363 women’s programs. The missing two are both thanks to SoCon: The Citadel and VMI do not sponsor women’s basketball, and both only began to admit women students in the 1990s.
And a final fact: the automatic bid is the only way that a men’s or women’s team from SoCon is going to participate in March Madness, as none of the teams are anywhere near the bubble.
Leaders:
- Points Per Game: Jadin Booth, Samford, 21.2
- Rebounds Per Game: Justin Neely, UNC Greensboro, 11.4 (3rd in D-I)
- Assists Per Game: Baraka Okojie, Mercer, 5.4
- Steals Per Game: Kahmare Holmes, Wofford, 2.1
- Blocks Per Game: Armani Mighty, Mercer, 1.7
The sphere is already set for the lads’s Southern match. The highest six seeds get a bye to the quarterfinals, whereas the underside 4 have a play-in first spherical. What this implies is that the highest two seeds, East Tennessee and Wofford, are ready for the winners of Chattanooga vs. The Citadel and UNC Greensboro vs. VMI, whereas Samford (3) takes on Furman (6), and Mercer (4) faces off in opposition to Western Carolina (5).
ETSU is not only the 1-seed, however can also be SoCon’s prime staff within the NCAA Analysis Software. That quantities to the 126th rating, nonetheless — it’s not near being on the bubble. Mercer is subsequent up, at 170, then Furman at 198 wraps up the top-200 groups. Samford (212), Western Carolina (234), Wofford (239), Chattanooga (282) and UNC Greensboro (298) are it for these throughout the prime 300, whereas The Citadel and VMI are two of the bottom-15 groups in Division I.
That ETSU is the highest staff in SoCon shouldn’t be a shock, given it has 4 of the convention’s top-20 gamers in Participant Effectivity Score. Senior ahead and UMass Lowell switch Cam Morris III is second in SoCon with a 26.2 PER. Sophomore ahead Blake Barkley is seventh, at 22.4. Main scorer Brian Taylor, a senior guard, ranks fifteenth at 17.5. And sophomore ahead Jordan McCallum is correct there with him, rounding as much as 17.5 in sixteenth. Furman is the one different staff with 4 gamers within the prime 20, however its representatives are all between thirteenth and twentieth.
East Tennessee has the highest protection within the convention by factors allowed, giving up 69.9 per recreation in SoCon play. For the season total, it’s 57th in Division I. The difficulty is that the offense is nowhere close to nearly as good, which makes ETSU weak. It did lose 5 video games in convention play and all. That’s simply type of the way it goes in Southern, nonetheless. Mercer, which completed in a three-way tie for second at 11-7 in SoCon play, leads in factors scored at 82.5 per recreation, however provides up 76.9 per recreation. These figures rank first and fifth within the convention, and a formidable forty third in D-I… canceled out by 232nd total for the latter. Everyone seems to be weak and in a position to be exploited, mainly, even the great ones.
Leaders:
- Points Per Game: Caia Elisaldez, Chattanooga, 16.4
- Rebounds Per Game: Clara Coyle, Furman, 9.3
- Assists Per Game: Caia Elisaldez, Chattanooga, 5.4
- Steals Per Game: Gianna Corbitt, Chattanooga, 2.2
- Blocks Per Game: Meghan Downing, ETSU, 2.2
There are simply eight girls’s basketball groups in Southern, as The Citadel and VMI don’t sponsor the game. What meaning is that there aren’t any byes in any respect, and no play-in spherical: the primary spherical is a quarterfinal, the second the semis after which it’s championship time. As a substitute, the matchups are commonplace prime seed vs. backside seed, and so forth down the road. High-seed Chattanooga will face 8-seed Western Carolina, 2-seed East Tennessee goes up in opposition to 7-seed UNC Greensboro, 3-seed Wofford takes on 6-seed Samford and 4-seed Furman matches up in opposition to 5-seed Mercer. The winner of the primary recreation faces the winner of the fourth recreation within the semis, to proceed to provide the highest seed — if nonetheless there — as a lot of an edge as doable as a reward.
Like with the lads’s facet, none of those groups are close to the bubble. And actually, the ladies’s groups are even additional away. Chattanooga is the highest staff in NET, however is available in at 208 of 363. Wofford is subsequent at 226, ETSU at 247, Furman 251. Mercer (258), UNC Greensboro (274) and Samford (295) are the remainder of the bunch throughout the prime 300; Western Carolina trails, method again, at 352, simply exterior of the bottom-10 in Division I girls’s basketball. It didn’t win a single recreation in opposition to fellow Division I colleges, going 0-25 in these video games and 3-0 in opposition to non-D-I groups.
The lesson to take from this — Western Carolina apart — isn’t that this convention struggles with girls’s basketball, however to acknowledge that these groups are all tightly packed collectively by way of means. Absolutely anything might go down within the SoCon match due to it.
Caia Elisaldez could be main each Chattanooga and the Southern Convention in scoring, however she’s not the highest participant on her staff per PER. That spot belongs to Chattanooga’s sophomore ahead Gianna Corbitt, at 31.7 — she’s the one participant within the convention over 30. Corbitt has the highest Plus/Minus and Offensive Score in SoCon, however she’s additionally first within the convention in Defensive Score. Elisaldez is fifth in PER, too — the 2 make fairly the duo, and are why Chattanooga is tops within the convention even when it isn’t a powerhouse exterior of it.
The Mocs are additionally right here as a result of they’re probably the most balanced staff within the Southern Convention: they rank second in each factors allowed per recreation and factors scored throughout convention play, 54.6 and 62.1. These figures must also function a reminder of what you already learn above, nonetheless: that isn’t a big hole between scoring and opponent scoring. If Chattanooga is one of the best that SoCon acquired, the match is broad open.
