The SoCon Lowdown: Standings start to set down the non-conference stretch
Plus: Jake Stephens' sensational performances, Chattanooga's charge, and VMI's winning streak
We have over a month of information on the 2022-23 college basketball season by now, and the rankings of most conferences are becoming clear. That’s true in the SoCon as well, although plenty can change in league play. But there are still some questions that remain to be answered as we reach the final weeks of non-conference competition. The SoCon’s teams will run a gauntlet of high mid-majors and power-conference foes this week, from NC State and North Carolina to Belmont and Stephen F. Austin. Who’s most prepared for their next few games—and to emerge from the conference with its postseason bid in hand?
The losses continue to mount, but Torvik is steadfast in seeing Samford as a legitimate title contender. The Bulldogs have the ninth-lowest F.U.N. (fortune unexplain by numbers, equivalent to KenPom’s “luck” stat) in all of D1, which makes sense; their 17-point loss to Louisiana-Lafayette this week was larger than the previous four combined, two of which came in overtime. Ques Glover has only played 46 minutes during this losing streak and 118 minutes all season, and he hasn’t seen the court in December. Conference play is just over two weeks away; will he be available by then?
Thanks to a win over South Carolina and a few other solid résumé points, Furman could have made a legitimate run at an at-large spot if they rolled through the SoCon and didn’t pick up the conference autobid. Those hopes are now on life support after the Paladins suffered a stunning home loss to High Point—admittedly 8-2, but a team which immediately turned around and lost at home to first-year D1 team Queens. Furman could resurrect its chances with an unlikely road win over NC State, who they face on Tuesday, but it’s not looking likely. On the upside, Mike Bothwell and Jalen Slawson have led a strong offensive effort that continued with 82 points against the Panthers, though the defense has been lacking.
Slowly but surely, Dan Earl is putting together a very impressive first-year performance. The former VMI head coach only has one bad loss (at home to Lipscomb; the others are to Charleston and Ole Miss) and has led Chattanooga to five straight wins. It helps, of course, to have Jake Stephens, who has followed in the steps of the Mocs’ 2022 Lou Henson Award winner, Malachi Smith. Stephens has scored at least 15 points in every game for Chattanooga thus far, and he added his fourth straight 25-point, 9-rebound game against Milwaukee before playing only 18 minutes against non-D1 Johnson to end the streak. Three tough non-conference tests remain for the Mocs: Middle Tennessee and Belmont this week, followed by Georgia next week.
The Spartans’ offense has been slowly recovering ever since it cratered in a 63-53 loss to Hofstra, and the defense came through this week for perhaps its best performance of the season. The result: a 65-58 nailbiting defeat at Arkansas in which UNC-Greensboro took the top-ten Razorbacks down to the wire, building a substantial early lead and keeping it a one-score game until the final two minutes. It was a remarkable full-team effort as nobody scored more than twelve points, and while it wasn’t enough for the Spartans to win, they can feel good about such a competitive showing against a team that should’ve outmatched them. We’ll see if they can play it into a home stretch against Marshall and non-D1 Warren Wilson this week, though.
Mercer is, if nothing else, consistent. They’ve rarely been truly awful this season—not a single loss by more than ten points, and none to a team outside Torvik’s top 250—but they haven’t done anything exceptional either. The Bears are still searching for a win over a D1 opponent with a winning record, and they lack an exceptional player to take them over the top. Mercer is senior-heavy, and it’ll be hard to catch them sleeping, but as things stand they probably won’t make much noise in March.
Wofford has put in a strong showing thus far, most notably in threatening to beat both LSU and Vanderbilt in three-point road losses. But all that positive momentum has been put on hold lately, as head coach Jay McAuley recently took an involuntary leave of absence. Further details haven’t been forthcoming, but the Terriers split a pair of games with teams ranked around 250th in Torvik without McAuley on the sidelines this week. They don’t play any D1 opponents this week, so hopefully things will be sorted out by the time they travel to Texas A&M and try to spook a third SEC opponent.
East Tennessee State was never planning to contend this season, but it’s still pretty dispiriting to be 2-6 in D1 and have no wins against teams ranked higher than 330th. Freshman Allen Strothers is getting the second-most minutes of any player despite being average or worse from every range, and sophomores Jaden Seymour and Justice Smith have also seen plenty of playing time without contributing much. The Buccaneers are building for the future, a future in which Strothers and sophomore Jalen Haynes will figure prominently, but their present is probably going to be pretty grim for most of this season.
The Citadel didn’t play this week, giving them a ten-day run-up to their visit to Chapel Hill. UNC is 19-0 against the Bulldogs and opened this season as the national #1 team, but they looked vulnerable against several mid-majors early on, scuffling with Gardner-Webb and Portland before a recent four-game losing streak. Chances of a win are an extremely long shot, but The Citadel is punchy and could hang with the Tar Heels for a half, if not longer. The senior-led Bulldogs will need to hit shots from distance to hang around, but they’re capable of surprising an up-and-down UNC team.
A home game against the Brevard Tornados (no e in that name) offered the Catamounts a chance to snap their four-game losing streak, which they gladly took. WCU looked more capable in their D1 game this week, tangling with Davidson for a little over a half before the Wildcats pulled away and won by eight. Tre Jackson, who’s quickly becoming the Catamounts’ leader, posted 21 points in the loss, his sixth game for WCU with at least 15 points after having just one in three years at Iowa State.
VMI is still dead-last in the SoCon by Torvik’s estimation, but the Keydets are starting to put things together. Ugly losses to Fairleigh Dickinson and Presbyterian invoked fears that they might go winless in D1 play, but VMI assuaged those fears by stunning Navy, and thanks to wins over NAIA Carlow and a legitimately decent Radford team, they’re suddenly on a three-game winning streak. That win over the Highlanders was particularly significant as it rekindled an in-state rivalry that had been dormant for half a decade. The Keydets now own the lead in that series, 22 games to 21, thanks to Sean Conway going 5-for-7 from three and scoring 23 points, his fifth 20-point performance in his last six games.
Around the former SoCon this week:
Alabama knocked off Houston, rallying from a fifteen-point deficit in the second half to take down their second #1 opponent of the season.
Duke has bounced back well from a 19-point loss to Purdue, winning four straight and defeating a solid Iowa team this week to reaffirm their contender status.
Georgia Tech and Georgia faced off in a tense rivalry matchup, with Miles Kelly scoring all seventeen of his point in the second half to lead the Yellow Jackets to a 79-77 win in Atlanta.
Marshall has quietly won nine in a row after a season-opening loss to Queens, rising over 100 spots into Torvik’s top seventy.
Mississippi State remained unbeaten with a dominant win over Minnesota, making them one of just seven teams that hasn’t lost this season.
A week after losing to William & Mary, Richmond pulled off a shocking blowout over Drake, defeating the Bulldogs 82-52 at home.
Tennessee continued to roll, putting a loss to Colorado further in the rearview mirror with a dramatic win over Maryland in Brooklyn.
Virginia is also undefeated and looks like the class of the ACC; they now welcome Houston to Charlottesville for a titanic top-ten duel.
Don’t forget about Virginia Tech, though, which reached 10-1 by outlasting Oklahoma State for their fifth straight win.
West Virginia picked up a quietly solid victory over UAB, pulling away after the Blazers briefly took a second-half lead to win 81-70.
Samford football’s season came to an end as they were throttled by North Dakota State, falling 27-9 in Fargo. Western Carolina reached .500 in women’s basketball, but their biggest highlight of the week was provided by alum Manteo Mitchell, who helped lead the United States to gold in the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Foundation World Push Championships.