The SoCon Meetings

The Southern Conference meetings ended last Friday, with all members still intact. In an attempt to sweeten the pot for the higher profile basketball playing schools, the membership did agree to several changes long sought by members Davidson and Charleston.

 While not eliminating divisions, as some schools wanted, changes were made to the tournament seeding, which should somewhat placate the South Division members. Previously, the first and second-place finishers in each of the two divisions received an automatic bye. Now only the division winners receives a bye, and two additional first-round byes will now go to the two teams with the best conference records.

The membership also voted to go to a shorter 16-game league slate, rather than the current 18 game schedule. Shortening the league schedule will allow for additional out of conference, higher profile guarantee games to be added to the each school's schedule.

One very interesting quote out the conference, “We understand that App State and Georgia Southern have been fairly public about aspirations to move to the Bowl Subdivision, but as their coaches and administrators said, you need an invitation and their phone isn’t ringing. They’re happy to be in the SoCon and we’re happy to have them. So we look forward to continuing with them.”