Southern Conference Tournament: SoCon Odds, Schedule, Information & Predictions
Arch Madness is the best tourney name, but “SoCon’ is for sure the best conference abbreviation. I even managed to call them the Southern Comfort conference in a SoCon Tournament preview vid from last year.
When is the SoCon Tournament?
Friday March 3rd through Monday, March 6th.
Where is the SoCon Tournament played?
The entire thing will be played on the neutral court at at the Harrah’s Cherokee Center in Asheville, North Carolina. This is the same arena that hosted the 1995 WCW Fall Brawl that saw Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Lex Luger and Sting defeat The Dungeon of Doom (Kamala, The Zodiac, The Shark and Meng) in the WarGames Match.
How to watch the Southern Conference Tournament
Streaming. ESPN+ will have the first couple rounds with the semis also on ESPNU. The final will be shown on ESPN Monday night.
Who won the regular season title?
Furman and Samford both ended up 15-3 in conference. Two of Samford’s three losses were to Furman giving the Paladins the top overall seed this week.
Defending Champ
A chalky affair saw the top two seeds meet in the final with Chattanooga winning by a single point to punch their ticket last year. (Boring game, don’t bother looking up how it ended.)
Who will participate
All ten teams will play, which is why we will have some first round play-in games Friday.
How Many teams will the SoCon send to the tournament?
Just the one.
SoCon Tournament Bracket
All neutral, no reseeding, only the bottom four play on day one.
SoCon Tournament Odds
FanDuel has a clear favorite with a REAL big jump after the top three.
SoCon Tournament Preview
Let’s start low and work our way up.
Longshots: Nooga lost their best player for the year, Western Carolina has some nice wins during their inconsistent season, but likely won’t even be a favorite in their first game, Wofford’s defense is very unremarkable, ETSU has some puzzling losses (maybe due to horrid FT shooting), and Mercer has the unfortunate task of taking their bottom tier offense up against Furman right off the bat should they win today.
I hate the lack of parity but, you can’t argue with the stats: there’s a clear upper crust here.
If nothing else, we should at least see a ton of points if this just ends up being a final between Furman and Samford. They both score around 80 per game, although if you made me pick a winner here based on offensive metrics I would think long before landing on Furman. They lead the league in half a dozen important metrics and maybe more importantly, are on the opposite side of the bracket from UNC-Greensboro, the only good defense.
SoCon Tournament Prediction
I ended up on the boring chalk here. Furman won’t have to face both of the other top teams and is just head and shoulders above the other offenses in the SoCon. Sometimes boring is beautiful, and hopefully profitable.
My Bet: Furman +100
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