2008-09 Preview: Small Conferences, Part III

Big West Conference

The Big West had a pretty good year in 2007-08. This conference is always very hard to predict because there are so many transfers and Juco kids that come in. This past year's champ, Cal State Fullerton, was a case in point. But barring another big crop of junior college kids, the Titans will not repeat as champion. They had six seniors in their regular rotation, and will struggle to fill out the roster.

UC Santa Barbara will return the nice inside-outside combo of James Powell and Chris Devine. Another good team will be Cal State Northridge, as their top five returning minutes-per-game players will be rising-seniors. You can never underestimate experience, especially in a conference like the Big West.

But the team to beat is probably Pacific, a school that has been a traditional power in this conference. They were a solid team this past season, spending most of the season with an RPI near the Top 100. On top of that, they return absolutely everybody, with no seniors on the roster getting any non-negligible playing time. If I'm going to pick one player to watch it will be rising-senior Steffan Johnson (15 ppg, 5 apg). As always, the Big West is a difficult conference to predict. But to me, the favorite has got to be Pacific.

Horizon League

Despite all the wrath I'm likely to get from Horizon League fans again, Horizon will continue to be listed in my "small conferences" ranking. Once again, it really doesn't matter - it simply affects the order in which I publish the conference previews. I am well aware that the Horizon was better than the WAC last year. More importantly, this will be a transition year for the Horizon.

Butler has been a dominant Top 25 for the past two years, but that is probably coming to end. Various mid-majors have been able to have one or two dominant years, but have struggled after their class of stars graduated. Gonzaga is a rare exception that has managed to continue recruiting top talent. Butler is going to have a tough task ahead, with just about everyone on that team that you've ever heard of graduating. AJ Graves, Mike Green, Drew Streicher, and Julian Betko are all graduating. So what's left in the cupboard? Butler fans have high hopes for rising-sophomore Matt Howard (13 ppg, 6 rpg, 60% shooting). He will need to be a first-team All-Horizon League player if Butler is going to win another conference title. The only other regular player who will be returning is rising-junior Willie Veasley (4 ppg, 3 rpg, 53% shooting). Their top incoming recruit will be sharp-shooting Gordon Hayward.

Most analysts will probably expect Cleveland State to be Butler's top challenger next season. They had a great start to this past season, and temporarily led the entire conference. They will get one more season out of stars J'Nathan Bullock and Cedric Jackson, and have a slew of other talented starters. This team might actually be as good as Butler's in overall talent - the question will be if they collapse under the pressure, like they did this past season.

Wright State and UW-Green Bay are both going to be good teams, but I don't think either of them will have the talent of Butler or Cleveland State. The top challenger will probably actually be Valparaiso, which acquitted itself well in its first season in the Horizon. Having an experienced and talented backcourt is essential in college basketball, and Valpo will have that in rising-seniors Jake Diebler and Brandon McPherson. Butler is going to have a ton of very young talent, and guys who watched a winning team from the bench, but I think there will be a changing of the guard and Valparaiso will take the Horizon.

Ivy League

A down year for an Ivy League still struggling to adjust to a down era for the Killer P's. Penn is on the way back, though, with a solid freshman and sophomore class. They also have a nice recruiting class coming in, which might make them the Ivy favorites in 2009-10. But for now, they still lack the All-Ivy talent that was the hallmark of past Penn coaching regimes.

One interesting issue has been Tommy Amaker at Harvard. Not only did he get revenge against Michigan, but he also brought in a highly touted recruiting class that has drawn the ire of other Ivy coaches. There have been rumors of improper recruiting behavior, and it's not clear how that will affect their incoming freshmen. But without a doubt, Harvard will have a nice set of talent coming in, and they will immediately be a challenger for the Ivy title.

Cornell also continued to improve under coach Steve Donahue. They might have snuck up on national analysts with this year's title, but they had actually challenged for several consecutive years before finally breaking through. Rising-juniors Ryan Whitman and Louis Dale should continue to put up big numbers (a combined 29 points, 9 rebounds and 6 assists per game). I also really like rising-senior Adam Gore.

A final darkhorse contender will be Dartmouth, which has been slowly improving and will have a very experienced starting lineup next season. If they're going to steal an Ivy title in the next few years, this coming season is probably their best shot. But in my mind, next year will be between Cornell and Penn. Penn will probably be the deeper team, but Cornell's stars are better than Penn's stars and I think that will be the difference. After 20 years since a non-Princeton and non-Penn team took the Ivy title, I think Cornell will make it two straight.

Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference

The MAAC had a bit of an interesting season in 2007-08. Traditional powerhouses Iona and Manhattan continued to be down. Yet at the same time, both Siena and Rider had outstanding seasons. There haven't been too many MAAC teams that have won Tournament games in recent years, but Siena absolutely rocked Vandy before losing a close one to Nova. What's going to happen next season?

Manhattan and Iona are continuing to rebuild and improve. The Jaspers have a nice creator in rising-junior Antoine Pearson (12 ppg, 2 apg, 41% 3-point shooting), but they still haven't completely recovered from the loss of talent after Bobby Gonzalez left. They should finish in the top half of the conference, but I can't see a conference title quite yet. Iona keeps just about everyone other than Dexter Gray, who was a bit of a disappointment after transferring from St. John's anyway. They have a nice recruiting class coming in, but they will still be in rebuilding mode next season.

Rider was powered by an impressive freshman class, but they will have to take a step back after losing star Jason Thompson (20 ppg, 12 rpg, 3 bpg) to graduation. Niagara will be a player, as will Marist with rising-junior David Devezin (10 ppg, 4 apg). While Iona probably has the deepest recruiting class, Marist has the only recruit who can really be called a blue-chip in 6'8" swing forward Andrey Semenov (Scout: 34 SF).

But in the end, I just don't think anybody is going to be able to touch Siena. If they can keep from letting their success get to their heads, they will return the entire starting five from a team that beat Stanford in Albany, and nearly clipped Syracuse at the Carrier Dome - all before their Tournament success. The only warning I have is that Siena has to remember to keep its feet on the ground. It's very unlikely that they'll be good enough to get an at-large bid, so they're still going to have to take that MAAC Tournament title. If they start thinking too much about a Sweet 16 appearance, they could easily slip up in the Tournament and end up playing their way into the NIT. But while that's obviously a real possibility, the obvious favorite to take the conference has got to be Siena.