I made a bold prediction for every conference ahead of the 2023-24 basketball season. What went right? And what went wrong?
The process of making preseason predictions is a fun part of every sport as it helps lay the groundwork for framing the season ahead. In college basketball, we often see things change quickly throughout the year — whether that be during the regular season or the nonstop churning of the transfer portal in the offseason — and there’s a need to react.
Those few weeks leading up to the season, that timeframe between late October into early November, is really the lone time there’s a calmness to the calendar as coaches get their teams ready for the season. That’s also prime time to do the aforementioned table-setting.
Too many people in this industry use that time to make outrageous claims for clicks or increased fan engagement because, let’s face it, there aren’t any real repercussions for getting those wrong. On the flip side, if one of those dart-throws happens to land, it gets paraded around in hopes of offsetting any small hit to one’s credibility.
I like to hold myself accountable for my preseason claims because, at least at the time, I believed in the rationale behind each of them — even the most outlandish ones were made with some sort of logic. As has become tradition, I made bold predictions about all 32 conferences back in November. Now, let’s see how those panned out.
America East
A VERMONT CATAMOUNT WILL NOT WIN PLAYER OF THE YEAR
Vermont won its eighth consecutive regular season championship in the America East, but the program’s seven-year streak of producing the conference’s Player of the Year was snapped. Shamir Bogues was named first-team all-conference and won Newcomer of the Year, but New Hampshire’s Clarence Daniels (19.6 ppg, 9.3 rpg) took home honors as the league’s best player. He’s just the second UNH player to ever win the award.
AAC
MEMPHIS DOES NOT FINISH IN THE TOP TWO
This prediction did not look promising for the first few months of the season as Memphis cracked the top 10 of the AP poll. Things did not go as planned for the Tigers once they got into AAC play, though, going 7-8 over their final 15 games to miss the NCAA Tournament. An 11-7 conference record had Memphis finishing in fifth.
ASUN
AUSTIN PEAY’S DEMARCUS SHARP WINS NEWCOMER AND PLAYER OF THE YEAR
Our first miss. Sharp had a solid season for the Governors and was a third-team All-ASUN selection, but he missed out on the major awards after transferring from Northwestern State. A hand injury did cause him to miss six games in February, which obviously hurt his chances.
Atlantic 10
DAYTON WINS THE LEAGUE’S REGULAR SEASON AND TOURNAMENT TITLES
Dayton did receive an at-large bid and made it to the NCAA Tournament’s second round but, surprisingly, closed the year without any A10 hardware. Richmond and Loyola-Chicago tied for the regular-season title (the Spiders held the No. 1 seed) while Duquesne won the league tournament — and went on to upset BYU in the Big Dance.
ACC
DUKE’S TYRESE PROCTOR WILL BE AN ALL-AMERICAN AND A TOP-5 NBA DRAFT PICK
This might be my biggest miss of all. I wasn’t the only one, but I truly thought Proctor would become one of the sport’s biggest stars and National Player of the Year candidate. Instead, he wasn’t able to build on the progression he made throughout his freshman season and ended up being Duke’s fifth-leading scorer.
Big 12
TCU FINISHES AHEAD OF BAYLOR
This was a bet on Baylor’s defense limiting the Bears’ ceiling, which kind of happened? They suffered 11 losses overall and went 11-7 in conference play for the second consecutive season. But that was still enough for Baylor to finish third. Meanwhile, TCU’s transfers did not hit at the rate I thought they would. As a result, the Horned Frogs finished in the middle of the Big 12 once again.
Big East
MARQUETTE FINISHES OUTSIDE THE TOP-3 IN THE LEAGUE
This looked really good until the middle of February. That’s when both Seton Hall and St. John’s started falling off while Marquette caught fire. The season didn’t end the way Marquette fans wanted, but a second-place finish in the Big East — combined with making it to the Big East Tournament final against UConn — is certainly nothing to sneeze at.
Big Sky
WEBER STATE BREAKS THROUGH, WINS BIG SKY
Weber State had easily the best win of anyone in the conference thanks to its 61-57 win over Saint Mary’s back on November 12. However, a 1-5 stretch in January threw a wrench in this team’s plans. Dillon Jones did prove he was a stud, but the Wildcats finished fourth in the Big Sky and lost in the opening round of the league tournament.
Big South
UNC ASHEVILLE SWEEPS CONFERENCE TITLES, LOSES JUST ONE GAME IN LEAGUE PLAY
OK, this was definitely bold in retrospect. Look, UNCA returned a ton of production, including star big man Drew Pember, from the 2022-23 team that did run through the Big South. The Bulldogs could not repeat that success, though. They finished a game behind regular-season champs High Point and lost in the Big South Tournament final to Longwood.
Big Ten
INDIANA MISSES THE NCAA TOURNAMENT
One of the reasons I enjoy going back through these predictions is we get to look back and see some of the general lines of thinking from the preseason. This was considered a somewhat hot take at the time! Indiana never got close to the NCAA Tournament — in fact, the Hoosiers were closer to firing Mike Woodson than they were to making the field. Safe to say we nailed this one.
Big West
UC SANTA BARBARA WINS LEAGUE BY MULTIPLE GAMES
CAA
CHARLESTON WINS THE LEAGUE, PAT KELSEY GETS POACHED
*extreme Mike Breen voice* BANG!
The Cougars won the league’s regular-season and tournament titles, earning their second consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance. After all that, Pat Kelsey ended up at Louisville. New head coach Chris Mack certainly isn’t a bad replacement, however, and should keep Charleston at the top of the league.
Conference USA
LOUISIANA TECH’S DANIEL BATCHO WINS NEWCOMER AND PLAYER OF THE YEAR
Nailed it again (mostly)! Batcho led CUSA in rebounds per game (9.8), offensive rebounds (3.8), blocks (2.4) and field goal percentage (57.9) while also earning first-team All-CUSA honors. Teammate Isaiah Crawford was named the conference’s Player of the Year.
Horizon
YOUNGSTOWN STATE WINS THE LEAGUE AGAIN
The Penguins finished a game behind Oakland, failing to repeat as conference champions. They hoped to find a sense of redemption in the Horizon Tournament but instead lost in the first round. Head coach Jerrod Calhoun was hired by Utah State, where he’ll replace Danny Sprinkle.
Ivy
YALE GOES TO NCAA TOURNAMENT, SWEEPS IVY AWARDS
I’ll accept partial credit! Yale made the Big Dance and upset Auburn in the first round, providing one of the few true upsets (and perhaps the most unexpected one) of the tournament’s opening weekend. Bez Mbeng did win Ivy Defensive Player of the Year, but the other awards went elsewhere. I did think Danny Wolf and James Jones had good arguments for Player and Coach of the Year, respectively, but alas.
MAAC
SIENA WINS THE LEAGUE
If by “winning the league” you mean “winning just four games all season,” absolutely! This season was an absolute disaster for the Saints. Michael Eley‘s breakout season never came, there were injuries up and down this roster, and their youth really showed. It was a flat-out embarrassment, so much so that they decided to part with head coach Carm Maciariello despite the program’s consistent success over his previous four seasons.
MAC
AKRON WINS THE MAC BY MULTIPLE GAMES
The Zips were on pace to do this — before losing four of their last six conference games to close the regular season. That said, Akron rebounded to win the MAC Tournament and then made things interesting for a half against Creighton in the NCAA Tournament.
MEAC
HOWARD’S SHY ODOM WINS PLAYER OF THE YEAR
I expected Odom would’ve stepped into a big role for the Bison after a very promising freshman campaign. That held up for the season’s first month before he suffered a back injury that lingered throughout the rest of the season. The award instead went to Norfolk State’s Jamarii Thomas.
Missouri Valley
DRAKE WINS EITHER THE REGULAR-SEASON OR TOURNAMENT TITLE
The battle between Indiana State and Drake was one of the most enjoyable conference title races to follow. The Sycamores won the regular-season battle, but Drake got revenge at Arch Madness. That earns us another check mark here.
(Here are some highlights from the Missouri Valley championship game, because it was just that fun.)
Mountain West
FIVE TEAMS MAKE THE NCAA TOURNAMENT
Alright, this is technically correct because the league got six teams into the Big Dance! We can discuss the conference’s performance in the NCAA Tournament another time (though only Boise State didn’t perform to its seed line), but the league was rewarded with the most tournament bids it has ever received.
NEC
THERE IS A SPLIT REGULAR-SEASON TITLE
This was an ode to what I thought would be parity at the top of the league. That panned out well, with both Central Connecticut State and Merrimack posting 13-3 conference records to tie for first. CCSU ended up with the top seed, while Merrimack fell in the NEC Tournament championship game to Wagner.
OVC
SIU EDWARDSVILLE EARNS THE LEAGUE’S AUTO-BID
This is another one where I was relatively far off. Instead of breaking through, SIUE finished .500 in conference play, earning the 6-seed in the OVC Tournament. It then lost its quarterfinal matchup to Morehead State, which went on to claim the auto-bid.
Pac-12
ARIZONA MAKES THE FINAL FOUR
This looked great for nearly the entire season, especially once the NCAA Tournament bracket was revealed. Arizona appeared to have a (relatively) easy path to the Final Four — but then the Wildcats ran into a hot Clemson team in the Sweet 16. The Tigers capitalized on Tommy Lloyd’s squad shooting just 37.3 percent from the floor and 17.9 percent from 3-point range, which ended Arizona’s run early.
Patriot
COLGATE WINS LEAGUE AGAIN, MATT LANGEL GETS HIRED AWAY
What else does Matt Langel have to do to get a better job? The 46-year-old was in contention for some high major openings (particularly Stanford) after leading Colgate to its sixth consecutive Patriot League title and fifth consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance. As of now, Langel remains in Hamilton.
SEC
TENNESSEE EARNS A NO. 1 SEED IN THE NCAA TOURNAMENT
So close! The selection committee had Tennessee as the No. 5 overall seed in its 1-68 list, giving the Vols the top 2-seed in the bracket. This was a bet on transfer additions Dalton Knecht and Jordan Gainey giving Tennessee some much-needed offensive pop, but I never could’ve imagined Knecht would have the kind of season he did.
SoCon
JP PEGUES WINS PLAYER OF THE YEAR, LEADS FURMAN BACK TO NCAA TOURNAMENT
Pegues was a first-team All-SoCon performer, but he finished second in Player of the Year voting behind Western Carolina’s Vonterius Woolbright (who put up a historic statistical season). Furman took a step back during the regular season and finished just one game over .500, paving the way for Samford to sweep the SoCon titles.
Southland
WILL WADE LEADS MCNEESE TO THE NCAA TOURNAMENT
The Cowboys never gave us a reason to doubt them. McNeese knocked off Michigan in Ann Arbor right before New Year’s and lost just one conference game all season long. In fact, 13 of its last 17 Southland games were won by double figures. The Cowboys failed to put up a fight against Gonzaga in the NCAA Tournament, but Will Wade’s squad was clearly the class of the Southland.
SWAC
JACKSON STATE WINS EITHER THE REGULAR-SEASON OR SWAC TOURNAMENT TITLE
Incorrect. The Tigers did OK on the season, posting an 11-7 record in SWAC play, but that was only good enough for the 6-seed in the conference tournament. They finished a full three games behind Grambling, which won both the league’s regular-season and tournament titles. GSU went on to win its first-ever NCAA Tournament game over Montana State in the First Four.
Summit
SOUTH DAKOTA STATE REPEATS, SWEEPS BOTH CONFERENCE TITLES
Let’s redeem ourselves a bit here, shall we? The Jackrabbits won the league’s regular-season crown by two games and then cruised to their second NCAA Tournament appearance in three seasons. South Dakota State has won at least a share of nine regular-season titles over the last 12 seasons, including six of the last seven seasons.
Sun Belt
THE LEAGUE WILL GET ITS FIRST NCAA TOURNAMENT WIN SINCE 2016
Another BANG! I didn’t know who exactly would make it out of this league given how competitive I expected it to be at the top, and both James Madison and Appalachian State proved me right. JMU ultimately won the tournament bid despite App State winning the regular-season crown, and the Dukes were dominant in a first-round upset of Wisconsin.
WCC
GONZAGA’S SWEET 16 STREAK ENDS
After Gonzaga beat Saint Mary’s in the final game of the regular season, Mark Few told reporters that people were too quick to give up on the Zags and didn’t give them time to progress and develop throughout the season. The Bulldogs certainly did that and played their best in the NCAA Tournament, shooting 55.9 percent from the floor in blowout wins over McNeese and Kansas to reach the program’s ninth consecutive Sweet 16 before falling to Purdue.
WAC
GRAND CANYON WINS A GAME IN THE NCAA TOURNAMENT
Ending the column on a good note! Grand Canyon’s size, defense and perimeter production were enough to get past Saint Mary’s in the first round, and the Lopes controlled almost the entirety of the second half. They were about six minutes and a few quality offensive possessions away from upsetting Alabama in the second round, too. GCU held a 58-55 lead with 6:03 left before the Crimson Tide ripped off a 17-3 run to close the game.
You must be logged in to post a comment.