The SoCon’s public endorsement of NCAA Tournament expansion leaves us with so many questions

While most that support mid-major basketball think it to be a bad idea, and that includes myself, the Southern Conference announced its support for the expansion of the NCAA Tournament from a 68-team field to 76 teams Tuesday morning by commissioner Michael Cross. Most of us have several questions, and it’s hard to know exactly where to start. Let’s start by looking at the SoCon’s general, unprecedented success over the past decade-plus.

SoCon POV: A Decade-Plus Like No Other

With the evolving landscape of the NIL/transfer portal era, it has been difficult for many mid-major conferences to keep up. The SoCon has not been immune to that either, as the last two seasons have seen the league go 0-34 against power-five programs, with those types of games becoming fewer and fewer during the regular-season non-conference. 

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The current era for the SoCon has been among its best in its 105-year history. Excluding the COVID-19 shortened 2020-21 season, the most notable thing about the SoCon upon first glance is that its league regular-season or tournament champion from 2014-25 has won 27 or more games over an 11-season span.

The league has produced a pair of NCAA Tournament wins, two nationally-ranked programs within the same season, an NIT Champion, multiple wins over reigning national champions and Final Four programs, wins over power-five and nationally-ranked programs, and two of the four 30-win teams the league has ever produced.

In fact, only in the past couple of seasons has the league seen its NCAA Tournament representative fall as low as a 15-seed in the Big Dance. Wofford competed as a No. 15 seed last season after winning the SoCon Tournament as a No. 6 seed, despite the SoCon having a solid No. 13 ranking in KenPom.

The Terriers were somewhat competitive before falling to Tennessee, 77-62, while Furman was a No. 15 this past season, falling 82-71 to national runner-up Connecticut. This was the closest a SoCon team has played in a game against a No. 15 seed…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/socon-public-endorsement-ncaa-tournament-163544030.html

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Publish date : 2026-04-22 16:35:00

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