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MEDIA DAY PRESEASON POLL
- Radford
- Gardner Webb
- Winthrop
- Hampton
- Charleston Southern
- Longwood
- Campbell
- High Point
- UNC Asheville
- Presbyterian
- USC Upstate
MEDIA DAY PRESEASON ALL-BIG SOUTH 1ST TEAM
Carlik Jones – Radford, JR G
Jermaine Marrow – Hampton, SR G
Jose Perez – Gardner Webb, SO G/F
Phlandrous Fleming – Charleston Southern, JR G
DeVon Baker – UNC Asheville, SO G
MEDIA DAY PRESEASON ALL-BIG SOUTH 2ND TEAM
Josh Ferguson – Winthrop, SR F
Shabooty Phillips – Longwood, SR G
Travis Fields – Radford, SR G
Nate Johnson – Gardner Webb, JR G
Cory Hightower – Presbyterian, SO F
COMMENTS FROM DAVID. Radford won 22 games last year, finished in a tie for first-place, and advanced to the conference championship game. With three starters back and a very talented backcourt, they are one of the favorites to win the league again this year.
Gardner Webb, who was last year’s conference tournament winner, is another team to watch for with three starters back. They have a really strong player in Jose Perez, and should get a lot of help from their bench. It wouldn’t shock me if they returned to the Big Dance this year.
Charleston Southern has four starters back from a team that looked pretty good in the latter part of last season. The problem is the one guy that isn’t back was easily their top player. Still, the Buccaneers should be able to have some success in the league this year and I think they’ll finish much closer to the top than they do the bottom.
Pat Kelsey is entering his 8th year at Winthrop, which is kind of hard to believe. They do lose quite a bit from last year’s team, including what was perhaps their top player, but they have some newcomers that look pretty good, and some of the guys from last year should be able to step into bigger roles.
Hampton enters their second year in the Big South. They had quite a bit of roster turnover, but also look to have a strong backcourt and should be able to make some noise in the league this year.
Head coach Griff Aldrich is in just his second year at Longwood, and the fact that he managed a winning season last year after the team had failed to win more than 10 for the past four years is a noticeable improvement. I’m not ready to say that Longwood can contend for first place, but with three starters back I do think they can continue to improve. This is a program that has never experienced success since making the move up to D-1, and it’s fun to see that they are getting better.
There isn’t much buzz around this High Point team, but Tubby Smith is entering his second year and while they did lose some of their top players, they got enough coming back and coming in to make me think they can be better than expected.
It can be frustrating when you’re trying to build a program. Presby won 20 games last year, and had one of the better players in the conference in Adam Flagler, and really appeared to be heading in the right direction. The problem was their head coach left for another job, and Flagler transferred to Baylor. Three starters are back, and they should at least be decent again this year, but had they retained everyone I would have liked their chances to finish near the top of the league.
Campbell tied for first place last year, and had one of the most exciting players in the country in Chris Clemons. The problem is that Clemons is gone along with two other starters. The Camels look to be in rebuilding mode this year.
UNC Asheville has four starters back! They will have experience! The problem is that the number of games they won last year is equal to the number of starters they have returning. It will likely be a long year for the Bulldogs again this year.
USC Upstate isn’t looking a whole lot better than UNCA this year.