If I were to describe SoCon basketball in a phrase it would be “the most fun to decide one.” It’s the essence of what this league is.
The SoCon really has seen almost everything in its rich history on the hardwood, and it’s the unpredictability that keeps you coming back for more year after year. If the late Hall-of-Famer Jerry West, who once played in the SoCon at West Virginia is the silhouetted NBA logo, then the SoCon logo should be the silhouetted logo for Mid-Major Madness as it is that exact
definition in terms of how it can be defined as a league.
Of all the fun the SoCon has had, it has yet to achieve the one thing it should have already achieved in its 106-year history, and that is an at-large bid. If we’re defining this league as a “one-bid league,” I challenge you to name a more exciting one in college basketball at any level.
The fight to get one is something that almost seems sacred in this league, and while I desperately hope it can get an at-large bid or bids to the Big Dance one day, it’s kind of a cool distinction that it fits into as being the most enjoyable league race and tournament in a one-bid league in college basketball. I truly believe that. I truly believe there is no conference tournament in postseason basketball that is more exciting or more fun to watch than the SoCon.
Over the past 11 seasons, the league has not had a repeat champion, and in each of the past two seasons, the first-ever No. 6 seeds have won the league tournament, with both Furman and Wofford able to claim titles. Since the start of the 2015-16 season, Furman (2023 and ’26), Wofford (2019 and ’25), Samford (2024), Chattanooga (2016 and ’22), UNC Greensboro (2018 and ’21), and East Tennessee State (2017 and ’20) have all claimed SoCon Tournament titles and made subsequent appearances in the NCAA Tournament.
In five of the past seven seasons, the SoCon has ranked in the top half of college basketball in terms of strength of conference, but last season saw the league slip to its lowest rank that has held at the end of a season in those seven campaigns, dating back to the 2018-19 campaign, which is really when the league started to be noticed nationally, turning in one of its strongest seasons in history.
KenPom ranked the SoCon 23rd last season, which is its lowest since the 2014-15 season (25th). In 2022-23, the SoCon slipped to No. 20 in KenPom, but it has mostly lived in the 12-19 range from 2016-26. This season will be about getting the league back to the standard it has been as a top mid-major for the better part of the past 11 seasons.
Cinderella lives here
The Citadel and Mercer are the only members of the league to have not won the SoCon Tournament, although the Bears last went to the NCAA Tournament in 2014, which was their final season as a member of the Atlantic Sun. Few will ever forget where they were when Mercer Madness happened to No. 3 Duke, as the Bob Hoffman-led Bears did the unthinkable by claiming the 78-71 win in Raleigh.
Then there’s VMI, which hasn’t made the tournament since 1977, when the Keydets claimed back-to-back titles in 1976 and ’77. Back when the NCAA Tournament only included 32 teams, the Keydets went all the way to the Elite Eight. Under the direction of head coach Bill Blair and led by star Ron Carter, the Keydets knocked off No. 9 Tennessee (81-75) and then defeated No. 17 DePaul (71-66) in overtime before running into the No. 3 and unbeaten Rutgers Scarlet Knights at the Greensboro Coliseum, dropping a 91-75 contest to finish a remarkable, breakthrough season with a 22-10 overall record and went farther than any SoCon team in the Big Dance since West Virginia in 1959 when they reached the national championship game only to lose to California (71-70).
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Tennessee Tech hasn’t played in the SoCon yet, and hasn’t played an NCAA Tournament game since 1963, while Western Carolina’s lone appearance came in 1996. Led by Anquell McCollum and Scott Scholtz in the paint, the Catamounts posted one of the greatest upsets in tournament title game history, as the Catamounts took down SoCon unbeaten and heavily favored Davidson, 69-60, at the Greensboro Coliseum. In the NCAA Tournament, the Catamounts came up just short of becoming the first No. 16 seed to ever take down a No. 1 seed, dropping a 73-71 heartbreaker at “The Pit” in Albuquerque. Few would have ever expected the run the Catamounts would make during its lone SoCon title-winning season.
The Catamounts actually started that 1995-96 season with a 1-7 record, which included a 60-58 home loss to Division-II Coker College. Few at that time could have foreseen a team that, under the direction of Phil Hopkins, would go on to achieve the heights that it did some 31 years ago.
The 2026-27 season will mark the 30th-year anniversary of Mocs Madness, which is the year that Chattanooga shocked the world and became America’s Sweetheart Cinderella. Under the direction of legendary leader Mack McCarthy, the Mocs had a great team, led in the backcourt by Willie Young and Wes Moore and Chris Mims and Johnny Taylor dominating in the paint. Chattanooga finished 24-11, knocking off Georgia (73-70), Illinois (75-63) before bowing out in the Sweet 16 in Birmingham with a 71-65 loss to a God Shammgod-led Providence team.
Now, heading into the 107th season of basketball in the historic league, the elephant in the room is if last season was evidence of the NIL era starting to have a real impact for the first time since it really began to affect the SoCon, as the league finished No. 23 in the final KenPom ranking, which was the lowest ranking at the end of a season for the SoCon since ranking 25th at the end of the 2014-15 season.
The SoCon has gradually seen more and more players exit the league for more lucrative NIL opportunities. After having 63 departures after the 2025-26 season and another 75 transfer outs this past season, it’s becoming clear that the league is being deliberately poached by power conferences, and now even some other higher ranking mid-majors because the coaching and development of players in the SoCon is arguably as good or better than any other mid-major conference in the country.
With the league now looking for a new commissioner, it’s also a strange time for the league’s hardwood scene. It feels like the SoCon has come to a crossroads at the end of an 11-season run in which it has spent most of it ranking inside the top half of college basketball. It’s an important time for every mid-major with the expansion of the NCAA Tournament from 68 to 76 teams. There is no shortage of talking points and issues to be addressed as the league heads into a bit of an unknown period for the first time in over a decade.
Slipping to No. 23 in the rankings is a multifaceted issue that must do some with players leaving, while it also has to do with the overall direction of how college basketball is heading. For the second straight season, the SoCon failed to defeat any high-major conference foe. The last wins over high-major foes came back in the 2023-24 season.
Those opportunities are now fewer as well, with programs like Furman, Chattanooga, ETSU and Samford getting fewer of those opportunities as a result of power conference working the NET Evaluation metric—the primary metric that is considered in the at-large selection process for the NCAA Tournament—and it looks as though with those opportunities drying up, so to is the league’s opportunity to ever garner an at-large invite to the NCAA Tournament.
The league does have a chance to be stronger heading into the new season than it was a year ago. That’s because there has been a more dedicated effort by the league’s head coaches to procure talented players from the transfer portal, even looking overseas and other under-utilized avenues to attract that talent in previous years.
One of those that coaches have started to use at several different schools within the league is internationally. That is a tactic once used by Bob McKillop at Davidson, as he really became a trailblazer in finding international talent, particularly from Africa and Europe, in helping build the Wildcats into a SoCon juggernaut.
The future of SoCon hoops and how it fits into the mid-major puzzle in terms of strength among its brethren conferences remains the biggest question mark with tournament expansion to 76 teams. Most of us understand that the expansion won’t favor giving the at-large bids to a league like the SoCon as compared to awarding another team from the SEC or ACC that barely had an above .500 overall record, but rather could relegate the auto-qualifier from the SoCon to a play-in round seed rather than into the actual NCAA Tournament.
This season will also be one that we don’t know the eligibility of at least three players who could have a major impact on how their teams and how they ultimately end up faring in the league race this season. Guard Tom House and center Charles Johnston are the players in question at Furman, and Samford’s Cooper Noard is another player who awaits his eligibility status for the upcoming season.
Both Johnston and Noard currently have TROs (temporary restraining orders) in that state of California, and that will keep them eligible for the first couple of exhibition games, while the final verdict on their full eligibility or non-eligibility will be decided until Oct. 20. House, who is in the Ohio case, will see his case make it all the way to the Supreme Court.
The eligibility of this trio of players will have a big impact on what happens for both of those teams this season, as both the Paladins and Bulldogs expect to be squarely in the mix for a SoCon title this season.
The Golden Eagles have landed
In August 2025, it was announced the SoCon would be adding a new member, as the league has now expanded to three teams in the Volunteer State with the addition of the Tennessee Tech Golden Eagles.
It’s an interesting addition for sure, as Tennessee Tech is a program that hasn’t experienced all that much success on the college basketball hardwood, and even less than its football program, although the Golden Eagles are currently undergoing a period of success over the past three seasons on the gridiron under the direction of head coach Bobby Wilder.
Golden Eagle fans are hoping that Tobin Anderson can have that same type of midas touch with the basketball program, which hasn’t been to the NCAA Tournament since 1963. The Golden Eagles made a change at the head coaching post at the end of last season, knowing they needed to step up their game entering the new league, as the SoCon hardwood tradition demanded they make some improvements in all areas.
With that in mind, not qualifying for the Ohio Valley Conference in their final season as a member turned out to be the end of the road for head coach John Pelphrey. The Golden Eagles finished 13-18 overall and were 8-12 in league play to finish out the season in ninth place overall.
The roster has been completely overhauled, and the Golden Eagles added some players like Davante Hackett from Stonehill College, guard Cbo Newton from Abilene Christian and highly-touted three-star freshman guard Kamai Samuels. They should be enough to at least make the Golden Eagles competitive in year one.
Despite a lack of success, the Golden Eagles will bring to the league one of the better home venues, in the Hooper Eblen Center, which was the second largest in the Ohio Valley Conference and has a capacity of 7,500 (roughly the size of the Liston B. Ramsey Center at Western Carolina). The Golden Eagles have posted a record of 447-220 in the Hooper Eblen Center, which first opened back in the 1977-78 season, with the Golden Eagles opening their new home facility with a big, 72-71, win over Vanderbilt.
The building is named for longtime administrator and former head coach Hooper Eblen, who served the university for 33 years and was instrumental in its construction of the facility. Prior to entering the SoCon, the Hooper Eblen Center was given an upgrade, as locker rooms were converted into a state-of-the-art recruiting tool for Tobin Anderson during the offseason.
Historically, though the Golden Eagles have totaled seven OVC titles, they have only two NCAA Tournament appearances, which are separated by five years. The Golden Eagles broke through and made the program’s first NCAA Tournament appearance in 1958 after posting a 17-9 overall mark, including an 8-2 mark in league play. While it was the program’s second regular-season title, it turned out to be the first NCAA Tournament appearance for the Golden Eagles, who at the time were led by head coach John Oldham.
Guard Kenny Sidwell led four Golden Eagles averaging in double figures, at 14.3 PPG, as Tech faced off against No. 8 Notre Dame in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament, dropping a 94-61 game to the Fighting Irish. Sidwell, who later went on to coach at his alma mater, is one of four players to have his jersey number retired, which was 40.
Five years later, the Golden Eagles, still being led by Oldham, were back in the tournament. Tennessee Tech would go on to finish with a 16-8 overall mark and finish 8-4 in league play. Unfortunately, in the NCAA Tournament, the Golden Eagles would run into a No. 5 Loyola Ramblers team that would end up overwhelming Tech, 111-42, in an opening round clash. The 1963 appearance in the Big Dance is the most recent one for Tech.
The Golden Eagles program has also won one OVC Tournament, which came in 1967. However, despite winning the OVC Tournament crown, which in that era was held at the beginning of the season and not at the end, had no bearing on the automatic bid qualifier to the NCAA Tournament. Tennessee Tech finished with just a 10-16 regular-season record, which included just a 4-10 league record to finish seventh in the league. Current SoCon member ETSU would go on to win the 1967-68 regular season OVC crown and garnered the lone regular-season bid to the NCAA Tournament.
Tennessee Tech has two more recent appearances in the NIT, qualifying twice in the other NCAA sponsored postseason tournament, which came in 1985 and 2002. The ’02 squad, which ended the season by winning 27 games under former Chattanooga head coach Jeff Lebo, claimed NIT wins over Georgia State (64-62), at Dayton (68-59) and at Yale (80-61) before eventually getting bounced from the tournament by Memphis (79-73) at the Pyramid.
Tournament format altered
With the change in format to the SoCon Tournament, with only the top five getting a bye instead of the top six, it’s going to make for quite a battle during the regular-season in the middle of the Southern Conference.
Unfortunately, with the addition of Tennessee Tech, it makes it less likely to make a run to the championship game in Asheville from Thursday the way the bracket is set up with the No. 6 seed playing the No. 7 seed, No. 8 playing No. 9 and No. 10 facing No. 11. The winner of the No. 10-11 game will face the top overall seed in Saturday’s first quarterfinal game, while the winner of the No. 8-9 game will face the No. 2 seed in the 2:30 p.m. game on Saturday and the winner of the No. 6-7 game will face the No. 3 seed in the 6 p.m. game.
There have been mixed reviews on the new format, and certainly the matchup that doesn’t make a lot of sense is the No. 6 and No. 7 having to face each other in Friday night’s last game of the opening round. The No. 6 seed has won each of the past two SoCon Tournaments. The No. 7 seed has made the championship game in four of the past seven tournaments and has made at least the semifinals of the tournament in six of the past seven tournaments.
The No. 6 or No. 7 seed have made the championship game of the tournament in six out of the past seven tournaments, winning the past two. The only year in which a six or seven team did not make the title game is 2022, which was that epic between No. 1 Chattanooga and No. 2 Furman, producing maybe the greatest finish in conference tournament title game history, with David Jean-Baptiste’s 34-footer at the buzzer in overtime, as the Mocs punched the ticket to the NCAA Tournament for the 12th time in program history.
Mid-Major Madness predicted order of finish
1. Furman (22-13, 10-8 SoCon/defending champion)
Paladins have reached four of the past five championship games, winning twice. If Charles Johnston and Tom House are eligible the entire season, the Paladins will be a tough out. Even without that experience, adding Marcus Kell from WCU is huge for Bob Richey and Furman.
2. East Tennessee State (23-11, 11-7/first in regular season)
Bucs have the best portal class but lost top returner Jordan McCullum to a knee injury.
3. Samford (18-14, 11-7/third)
Lennie Acuff’s team got Cooper Noard from Cornell out of the portal, and if he stays eligible, the Bulldogs will be in the mix in both the regular-season and tournament title mix.
4. Wofford (19-13, 11-7/second)
Chace Watley and Brian Sumpter return, and the addition of Cam Lowe from Black Hills State makes the Terriers a title contender in head coach Kevin Giltner’s second season at the helm.
5. VMI (6-26, 1-17 SoCon/10th)
One of the two SoCon darkhorses returns Rickey Bradley Jr. and TJ Johnson as the two main offensive weapons, while AJ Clark is back to be one of the top glue guys in the SoCon.
6. Western Carolina (15-16, 10-8 SoCon/fifth)
The Catamounts figure to be much more athletic this season and will challenge for a Top 5 finish.
7. Chattanooga (13-19, 8-10 SoCon/eighth)
The Mocs have a nice mix of European talent and one of the top freshmen recruits in the SoCon: guard Christian Matos.
8. Mercer (19-13, 11-7 SoCon/fourth)
The Bears won’t have Baraka Okojie and Armani Mighty anymore, but Shane Cherry and KJ Lamonte form a backcourt as good as any in the SoCon.
9. Tennessee Tech (13-18, 8-12 OVC/ninth)
It’s hard to know where the Golden Eagles will end up year one in the SoCon, but they’ll have one of the most exciting scorers in the league in Stonehill transfer Davante Hackett.
10 The Citadel (11-22, 7-11 SoCon/ninth)
The Citadel won its most conference games since 2009-10 and then upset Chattanooga in the SoCon Tournament. What will the Bulldogs do for an encore?
11. UNCG (15-19, 9-9 SoCon/seventh)
Jerod Haase heads into his first season as the head coach, but for a team that has won 233 games since the start of 2015-16, it has its lowest expectations of any of the past 11 seasons.
Mid-Major Madness 2026-27 All-Conference Teams
First Team
G-BJ Ward (ETSU)
G-Cooper Noard (Samford)
G-Chace Watley (Wofford)
F-Marcus Kell (Furman)
F-TJ Johnson (VMI)
Second Team
G-Shane Cherry (Mercer)
G-Jayden Cooper (ETSU)
G-Tate Darner (Chattanooga)
F/C—Charles Johnston (Furman)
F/C-Samuel Dada (Western Carolina)
Third Team
G-Quinton Perkins II (Mercer)
G-Cameron Lowe (Wofford)
G/F-Cole Bowser (Furman)
F-Cade Norris (Samford)
F-Brian Sumpter (Wofford)
Mid-Major Madness 2026-27 SoCon Superlatives
Regular Season Champion: Furman, ETSU and Samford finish in a 3-way tie for first.
NCAA Tournament Participant: Furman
NIT: ETSU
Player of the Year: TJ Johnson (VMI)
Newcomer of the Year: Cooper Noard (Samford)
Freshman of the Year: Dionte Neal (UNCG)
Defensive Player of the Year: Samuel Dada (Western Carolina)
Best Dunker: Davante Hackett (Tennessee Tech)/Brian Sumpter (Wofford)
Biggest Jump: Abijah Franklin (Furman)
Best Pure Shooter: Cam Elwer (Furman)
Ultimate Glue Guy: Marcus Kell (Western Carolina)
Best On-ball defender: AJ Clark (VMI)
Best Passer: BJ Ward (ETSU)
Best Sixth Man: Jayden Cooper (ETSU)
