What We're Doing, Here

Basically, I have a disease. I love College Basketball entirely too much, in every way. I love it to death. This leads me to watch way too much of it, often between two obscure teams that nobody really gives a shit about.

Obviously, with such a love for CBB, I go crazy for the NCAA Tournament. Two aspects of the Tournament are my favorite: the "bubble" teams, and all of the Bubble Watches and Bracketologys and everything that goes into comparing Team X to Team Y and trying to figure out which team deserves to make it and which doesn't, and the single-bid leagues. The so-small leagues, that have no chance, whatsoever, of getting in without winning their conference tournament. It's what makes College Basketball, and especially the NCAA Tournament, the greatest event in sports: everyone truly has a chance.

So, with my love of blogging and my love for the smaller schools combined, I figured: "why not start a blog?" I do already have one blog, that I run discussing my favoritest team of all-time, ever: the Kansas Jayhawks. If you have a similar interest, or just want to read my awesome writing, check it out at: www.rockchalktalk.com. Also, with my plan to attend Xavier University next year, I'm strongly considering starting up an X-Men blog, as well.

But for the purpose of this blog, we will just discuss the smallest of the small conferences. That's it. That's all. So yeah, in a way this will kinda-sorta be like Mid-Majority. Except, worse in every way; now way I can possibly compete with Kyle Whelliston. But, I'll do my best, and try and shed some more light on the single-bid conferences.

They've always interested me, and I've always wanted to learn more about them. So, here we go. It should be a fun ride.

As far as which conferences will be covered, it isn't that difficult. We're talking about the smallest of the small, here. So, if any conference has had an at-large bid over the past 5 seasons, they are disallowed. This takes out: ACC, SEC, Big 12, Big 10/11, Big East, Pac 10, Mountain West, C-USA, A-10/14, Valley, Horizon, WAC, MAC, WCC, CAA. The Horizon is the only one that kinda-sorta should be included, it's really just Butler and everybody else, but them's the rules. That is 15 Conferences, which leaves 16 Conferences leftover, along with the Independents that will also be documented here at S-BN. Also, it just so works out that those are 14 of those teams are the Top 14 in KenPom's Conference rankings (as you'll soon discover, I have a hard-on for KenPom, as well), with the lone exception being the MAC, which has fallen on hard times of late. Another year-or-two of futility could get them coverage here, but I still think they are too big-time for the true purpose of this blog.

Just for the record, here are the Conferences that will be covered:

MAAC -- 10
Big West -- 9
Summit -- 10
Southland -- 12
Sun Belt -- 12
America East -- 9
Big Sky -- 9
Ohio Valley -- 10
Atlantic Sun -- 11
Southern -- 12
Ivy -- 8
Patriot -- 8
Big South -- 10
Northeast -- 11
MEAC -- 11
SWAC -- 10
Independents -- 12

Just for fun, that is 174 teams, if my counting is correct. That's a helluva lot of teams.

With plans to preview every one prior to the start of the new season, along with boatloads of season recap stuff and stuff to come throughout this offseason, we've gotta get a move-on. 174 teams, wow.

There are like 182 days until Midnight Madness, as a rough estimate. So, yeah, if I want to get all of them done, I've gotta hurry.

We'll set the tentative deadline to start these things up as Monday. Sound good?

Hope y'all will keep on coming back. This place should be rockin' soon.