Southern Conference Men’s Tournament Preview

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SPARTANBURG, SC - JANUARY 24: Wofford Terriers guard Kahmare Holmes (11) during a college basketball game between the Mercer Bears and the Wofford Terriers on January 24, 2026 at Jerry Richardson Indoor Stadium in Spartanburg, S,C, (Photo by John Byrum/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) | Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

The 2026 Southern Conference Tournament commences this week in Asheville, and it’s been awhile since we’ve seen a league dominated by a mix of youth and veteran leadership that has been prevalent at most programs.

The youth could impact this tournament more than any in recent memory, with eight of the 10 league programs having started a freshman in one or more games this season. If you’ve watched the SoCon this season, one emerging trend is freshmen playing key roles for their respective teams. It’s been a trend that has made this league so exciting to follow this season, and that’s even if KenPom says it is the 23rd best conference in college basketball after ranking 10 places higher last season at No. 13.

Some of the drop in strength is a direct result of talent lost through transfers. When you look at how well guys like Donovan Atwell (UNCG-to-Texas Tech), Honor Huff (Chattanooga-to-West Virginia), Karon Boyd (ETSU-to-Wichita State), Kenyon Giles (UNCG-to-Wichita State) and Quimari Peterson (ETSU-to-Washington) performed, it’s clear: unlike last season, these transfer-outs are playing significant roles at their new schools this season.

While the SoCon is acquiring players it previously couldn’t attract, placing so much responsibility on so many young players takes a toll. It’s led to a season as exciting as we’ve had in some time, featuring unreal talent. A lack of maturity has also shown up at times. This is especially true with so many young, extremely talented point guards in the league who have been asked to go above and beyond in their roles during their first experience playing NCAA Division-I college basketball. No matter how talented a high school player is, that adjustment is tough for any rookie.

This trend has also caused a few grey hairs among the coaches. Only one coach in the league is eligible to really have a lot of them, and Samford’s Lennie Acuff probably looks 15 years younger without them. Perhaps the wily veteran coach of more than 600 career wins knows a few tricks of the trade that others in the league haven’t caught on to yet. When I think back to the last bald coach in the league, he was pretty successful, too, and his name was Steve Forbes.

However, back to the premise and that is that is the league is stacked with young stars, with a majority of the coaches in the league choosing to recruit high school talent normally not available, develop that talent, and then hope that talent stays, or if they portal out, to stick around at least two years before making an exit to a bigger program.

Is the SoCon becoming a minor league mid-major for power conferences to hand-pick talent? The truth is those power conference programs were doing that anyway with the portal talent that was being brought in for maybe one year or two and then bailing to go make money in a power conference.

There’s always a Ja Morant out there to be found. One who will stick with the program that recruited him in the first place. At least, I want to believe that. I do wonder if Morant were in school at Murray State this day and age, would he still choose to stay at Murray State, despite the big-time money offers. I wonder if his trajectory of the talent he is now in the NBA would have changed at all had he bolted to a power conference program.

The truth probably lies somewhere in-between, but we know that Morant would have been an NBA Draft pick and there’s no question about that. Transferring into a power conference, however, might have seen his numbers take a little bit of a dip, if only slightly.

The quality of the freshmen in the league is also notable, and while power conferences toil with mid-major developed talent, the SoCon’s coaching staffs have struck gold and managed to procure a number of freshmen that, perhaps just three years ago, would have been untouchable because of power-conference interest.

The influx of freshman talent is at an all-time when it comes to the players the SoCon can get, with most of the bigger programs now exclusively relying on transfer portal players. The irony is that since the advent of the transfer portal, there is not a “Freshman of the Year” recognized anymore, as Wofford’s Jackson Paveletzke was the last to actually receive the award in the 2022-23 season.

Now the award is given to the SoCon “Newcomer of the Year” focusing on either freshman performer, or more often the case–the top transfer portal addition–which has been the case with the past two winners of the “Newcomer of the Year” award has gone to a pair of seniors the past two years, with Samford’s point guard Rylan Jones winning the award during the 2023-24 season, while Chattanooga’s Frank Champion claimed the newly fashioned award last season.

The change of philosophy is that the league saw every Freshman of the Year from 2017-22 transfer out of the league. With the NIL era now in full motion, the league decided to move away from the award following the 2023 season.

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I asked both Furman’s Bob Richey and Wofford’s Kevin Giltner about the new movement among the league’s coaches to develop youthful talent over recruiting exclusively from the portal.

“I don’t know all of the classifications like I need to, and I pay attention to our team the most,” Richey said. “That’s a little bit of a loaded question, right? … I mean there’s a lot of attention to the portal. There are a lot of advantages to getting an older player … but there’s also a little Warren Buffett in this: ‘When fearful be greedy. When greedy be fearful.’ Everybody is afraid of high school kids right now.

“What’s happened is that it’s just simple economics, and there is supply and demand involved … You’re going to be able to get a better player and now in today’s time you gotta be able to retain them and you gotta be able to keep the… They’re going to get an opportunity if they’re good enough and for us, I’ve never played this many freshmen, but these freshmen are good.”

“Every team in this league I think has an impactful freshman or two,” Giltner said when I spoke to him last week prior to the Terriers’ game at ETSU. ”Obviously, we have a bunch. Furman’s got a bunch, and I don’t think ETSU has many, but they have really good players … I think it’s a trend that’s really all over college basketball, to be honest, and it’s kind of repetitive the way this thing is going throughout college basketball … It seems like every night you can flip on the TV and see some impactful freshman doing something to help a team win.“

I’ll have two separate articles examining the youth movement and the talent that has transferred out of the league since the beginning of the NIL era in 2022-23.

The Teams, Seeds and a Dash of the Bizarre​

The top-overall seed coming into the tournament is East Tennessee State (21-10, 13-5 SoCon), as the Bucs became the first team to win the SoCon with five losses since UNCG claimed the crown with a 13-5 mark during the 2020-21 season. The Bucs don’t have great form entering the postseason. They lost the final two regular-season games to Wofford 72-69 and Mercer 82-76 after clinching the title.

Still, the Bucs under head coach Brooks Savage have been the most consistent team in an inconsistent league. The Bucs can take solace in the fact that 21 of the past 29 champions have gone into the tournament as the No. 1 seed and come out with the championship trophy. The Bucs will open the tournament on Saturday, March 7, 2026, against the winner of No.8 Chattanooga (13-18, 7-11 SoCon) and No. 9 The Citadel (10-21, 7-11 SoCon).

It’s a great coaching matchup and a great way to open the tournament on a Friday evening in Asheville. UTC’s Dan Earl vs. The Citadel’s Ed Conroy in a game that will be the perfect way to open up the 2025 tournament at the Harrah’s Cherokee Center in Asheville on Friday evening at 5 p.m.

For Chattanooga, which won the SoCon regular-season, set a school-record with 29 wins and became the first team to ever win the NIT out of the SoCon last year, things haven’t gone so well this season. That might be a bit of an understatement for a team that was picked in the preseason to win the league. Injuries and the lack of lineup consistency and overall depth as a result, has led to an overall inconsistent season. One thing Chattanooga still does a lot of is shoot the three, as the Mocs enter the tournament having connected 327 3-pointers to rank 23rd nationally in three-pointers made.

One thing that probably sums up the “bizarreness” of the season all together is the fact that the Mocs posted a losing record for the first time in the 44 seasons of operation inside the friendly confines of McKenzie Arena (7-8), which is also affectionately known as “The Roundhouse.” It was once rated as one of the toughest places to play in college basketball by Street Smith’s College Basketball Annual. The Mocs posted a 14-3 record at home just last season.

The Citadel’s seven Southern Conference wins, which could have very well been enough to garner Conroy SoCon Coach of the Year accolades this season, was an unexpected surprise, and over the past three seasons combined the Bulldogs have a total of eight. In fact, the seven SoCon wins were their most since winning nine in the 2009-10 season. The Bulldogs and Mocs split the regular-season series. The Bulldogs won at McKenzie Arena (78-71), while the Mocs won by 21, 93-72 in Charleston. The Citadel comes into the tournament off arguably its biggest win of the season, as the Bulldogs got a 93-90 win at Wofford

The No. 2 seed heading to Asheville is the Wofford Terriers (19-12, 11-7 SoCon), which as the No. 6 seed last season won a sixth tournament crown in program history, which have all come in the past 15 years. Wofford is the “new money” success in an old money league. With the 92-85 win over Furman in the championship game last season, the Terriers became the first No.6 seed to win the tournament in league history.

Fast-forward to Wofford’s own version of bizarre, firing Dwight Perry on Sept. 12 and hiring former assistant coach and alum Kevin Giltner just nine days later. He got to work quick to preserve his roster, which only had three holdovers from the team that won it the previous season, but it was vital timing to make a quick decision by the Terrier administration. One of those three players that Giltner was able to keep in Spartanburg was Kahmare Holmes (19.3 PPG, 5.6 RPG, 4.9 SPG), and the sophomore guard has been maybe the league’s best player and might have won Player of the Year had an injury not sidelined him for about a month.

The Terriers will clash with the winner of No. 7 UNC Greensboro (13-18, 9-9 SoCon) and No. 10 VMI (6-25, 1-17 SoCon) on Saturday, March 7, with tip-off set for approximately 2:30 p.m. EST. The Spartans and Keydets will do battle in the night battle on Friday evening, at approximately 7:30 p.m. EST. VMI’s lone Southern Conference win this season came early in Southern Conference play, as the Keydets knocked off Chattanooga, 79-71, on Jan. 3. It was now head coach Andrew Wilson’s first win over former boss Dan Earl since he took over at Chattanooga prior to the 2022-23 season. Earl was the head coach at VMI from 2015-22 before moving on to Chattanooga.

The Keydets’ version of bizarre is that they had the preseason SoCon Player of the Year, Rickey Bradley Jr., who never played in a game this season after getting injured. The Keydets are riding a 16-game losing streak entering the tournament and yet, there’s a real chance that they might upset UNCG in their opening game of the tournament. After all, it was VMI that knocked Mike Jones’ Spartans completely out of the tournament last season, knocking off the Spartans, 64-57, to reach the semifinals of the SoCon Tournament for the first time since 2021.

That loss to VMI for UNCG head coach Mike Jones was his fourth-straight in Asheville, as he fell to 0-4 in the facility as the head coach of the Spartans. The last time UNCG won a game at the Harrah’s Cherokee Center, it was a 69-61 triumph over Mercer in the championship game, and Wes Miller was the head coach, helping his team cut down the nets after winning the 2021 crown.

There’s reason to believe that this season could be just as tough, as the Spartans will be without a player that might end up being the SoCon’s Player of the Year, in 6-6 forward Justin Neely (17.6 PPG, 11.4 RPG, 18 double-doubles), who hurt his ankle in the Spartans’ regular-season finale road loss to Samford. It’s also been a bizarre season for the Spartans, who have been very “un-Spartan-like” this season, as UNCG has gone from one of the best defensive teams in the nation to being one of the worst.

The No. 3 seed heading to Asheville is Samford (18-13, 11-7 SoCon), and when the Bulldogs arrive in Asheville, they will be one of the hottest teams in the league, having won eight of their last nine games entering the tournament. First-year head coach Lennie Acuff directs the Bulldogs, who are starting to put the pieces together after a rocky start to league play. The Bulldogs started league play 2-5, but since then, they have won nine of their last 11 heading to Asheville to garner the No. 3 seed. It’s reminiscent of how the 2022 Bulldogs got hot to capture the No. 3 seed that year.

With that said, Acuff’s Bulldogs started to figure things out towards the end of January, and oddly enough, it was a game against their first-round opposition, No. 6 Furman, in which the Bulldogs started to figure it out. Although the Bulldogs didn’t get the win, they mounted a furious rally and a spark was lit in that Jan. 29, 2026, matchup, which was nationally televised on CBS Sports Network. The Samford-Furman game will tip-off at 6 p.m. EST at the Harrah’s Cherokee Center.

Furman’s bit of bizarre is that it is a team that doesn’t shoot the three well and is careless with the basketball. Those are two characteristics that are never associated with Richey-coached teams, but it’s where we are at the moment. Most knew the Paladins wouldn’t be quite as proficient of a perimeter shooting team, however, few figured it would take such a drastic dip in overall shooting acumen. For instance, the Paladins ranked second in the SoCon last season in 3-point shooting percentage, finishing at 36.6% from long range, while leading the league in 3-pointers made (380) at season’s end.

This season, the Paladins head to the tourney ranking 10th (last) in the SoCon in team 3-point shooting percentage (31.8%). They have made 68 fewer threes heading into the tournament this season compared to last (272 in 2024-25 vs. 328 in 2025-26). A year ago in Asheville, the Paladins made 42 3-pointers in three games, nearly breaking the conference tournament record of 43 set by UTC in four games in 2023.

Furman isn’t shooting the three well enough consistently to win this tournament or even win a game at this point, but they certainly have a roster chock-full of talent capable of winning it. Interestingly the Paladins finished fourth, fifth and sixth in the past three seasons, respectively.

Rounding out the the first days of action in the Southern Conference Tournament will be another mouth-watering clash, as No. 4 Mercer (19-12, 11-7 SoCon) and No. 5 Western Carolina (14-15, 10-8 SoCon) will tip off at approximately 8:30 p.m. Expect this game to be a bloodbath, as the two split the regular-season meetings, with WCU taking the most recent meeting, 78-74, back on Feb. 25. It’s part of WCU’s six-game winning streak heading into the tournament, making the Catamounts the hottest team in the SoCon. Most notably, the Catamounts swept both perennial title contenders Furman and regular-season champion ETSU.

Define Each Team with One Sentence​

1. ETSU (21-10, 13-5 SoCon)​

Defense wins championships, but so does offense and the Bucs have been the epitome of balanced play on both ends of the floor this season under Brooks Savage, who has delivered a master class in his third season at the helm. The core of the Bucs team is made up of players who put up solid all-conference numbers, but none of those numbers would necessarily “wow” you, as this reflects the true essence of a team. Joining the “glue guy” Strothers in the backcourt is Brian Taylor II (14.5 PPG, 4.0 RPG), one of three Bucs averaging in double figures. Point guard Allen Strothers (4.1 PPG, 3.2 APG, 2.2 RPG) and Taylor lead the defense. Their defensive prowess and ability to cause havoc with their quickness and on-ball guarding capabilities are a big reason why ETSU ranks 19th nationally in steals-per-game (9.0 SPG) this season. The front court trio of Blake Barkley (14.2 PPG, 4.2 RPG), Jordan McCullum (8.3 PPG, 2.4 RPG) and Cam Morris III (14.1 PPG, 5.3 RPG, 1.5 APG, 36 BLKs) is arguably the best in the league.

2. Wofford (19-12, 11-7 SoCon)​

Kahmare Holmes (19.3 PPG, 5.6 RPG, 4.9 SPG) is a guard who can drive to the basket as effectively as any guard in the league. Freshman forward Brian Sumpter (6.7 PPG, 5.0 RPG) reminds me of a mix between former Terriers Nick Pringle and Chevez Goodwin, but the question is whether the Terriers have the defensive capability. Nils Machowski (17.1 PPG, 5.6 RPG, 87 threes) and Cayden Vasko (10.7 PPG, 4.5 RPG, 54 threes) have made positive impacts, but the Terriers must improve defensively if they hope to cut down the nets again on Monday night. If they do that, it will be the first repeat champion since the Terriers won the title in back-to-back seasons in 2014 and ’15.

3. Samford (18-13, 11-7 SoCon)​

Jadin Booth (21.2 PPG, nation-leading 119 3-pointers) is the best shooter in the country, and Dylan Faulkner (17.3 PPG, 8.6 RPG) gives the Bulldogs a real scoring threat inside. There’s a lot of quiet confidence in this Bulldogs team, but the real essence of their improvement is on the defensive end of the floor where they currently rank third in the SoCon in defensive efficiency according to KenPom (109.0). Booth is a rare talent. His barrage of 11 3-pointers in a 40-point effort against UNCG in the regular-season finale—which saw the Bulldogs clinch the No. 3 seed with an 87-78 home win—was something to behold and he’s the latest of the league’s generational shooting talents.

The SoCon holds nearly all of the NCAA 3-point milestones, and naturally, Booth is the latest of those 3-point snipers, and he gives Samford a great chance to go dancing for a second time in just a three-year span. No SoCon player has made 11 threes in a game since Patrick Good made 11 against Western Carolina in 2019. In fact, Booth’s effort against the Spartans makes him just the fourth player in league history to connect on 11 threes in a game, joining Fletcher Magee (11 at Chattanooga in 2018), Patrick Good (11 at Western Carolina in 2019) and Elton Nesbitt (11 vs. Chattanooga in 2005). With four 3-pointers against Furman Saturday night, Booth will move into the top 10 in single-season 3-pointers made.

4. Mercer (19-12, 11-7 SoCon)​

While defense has been a good indicator of the overall champion in this tournament, the team that ended the season leading the league in scoring defense has won the title five times since 2014. However, the trend overall in college basketball nowadays is towards offense. That would certainly favor the Bears in a three-game tournament. Leading that offensive array of options for the Bears this season has been point guard Baraka Okojie (19.5 PPG, 3.5 RPG, 5.4 APG) and he’s made this offense work at optimum level most of the season. Okojie’s overall versatility is made possible because of the inside presence of a player like Armani Mighty (13.5 PPG, 10.7 BPG). That inside-outside punch of both Okojie and Mighty has led to some pretty audacious performances over the course of the season.

5. Western Carolina (14-15, 10-8 SoCon)​

It’s been 30 years since the Catamounts cut down the nets in Greensboro to win their only SoCon Tournament title and subsequently make their lone NCAA Tourney appearance. Winners of six-straight, the Catamounts are starting to have some visions of 1996 and the current trend could have Tim Craft leading WCU to an NCAA Tournament in just his second season as the head coach. If you’re looking for a player to keep an eye on for WCU, it’s Tahlan Pettway (8.2 PPG, 2.0 RPG), who ran the show over the final three games of the regular season while regular starter Julien Soumaoro was injured—and it wasn’t such a bad thing at all. Pettway has been awesome. His quickness, shooting ability, and distribution have been elite over the past four games leading into the SoCon Tournament. In the final four games of the regular season, Pettway scored in double figures in all four, posting a career-high 24 points against UNCG and nearly equaling that total with 23 points in the regular-season finale against Furman. In wins over VMI and Mercer, Pettway added 11 and 15 points, respectively. He’s averaging 18.2 PPG in the final four games of the season, while scorching the nets from 3-point range over that stretch, connecting on 43.7% (14-of-32) from long range. The Catamounts aren’t just a darkhorse, their likely my favorite to punch their ticket to the NCAA Tournament.

6. Furman (19-12, 10-8 SoCon)​

Furman has plenty of weapons. While the Paladins have struggled shooting from long-range, they are actually decent offensively, ranking second in the SoCon in field goal percentage and leading the league (and ranking 11th nationally) in 2-point field goal percentage (59.6%). The Paladins have a strong inside-outside combo, led by guards Asa Thomas (13.1 PPG, 4.3 RPG) and freshman phenom Alex Wilkins (17.3 PPG, 4.9 APG). Cooper Bowser’s (13.6 PPG, 5.9 RPG, 78.4 FG%) presence in the paint has been unstoppable at times in league play after he returned from a lower body injury that forced him to miss the first 10 league games. But Furman will have a different way to reach the promised land this season, as shooting the 3-ball hasn’t been it. It’s a good thing the Paladins rank second in the league in defensive efficiency, and that will have to be the elixir they choose as their winning formula in Asheville. When Asa Thomas scores 15+ points this season, the Paladins are 9-0. Something to be aware of in Asheville.

7. UNCG (13-18, 9-9 SoCon)​

Without Justin Neely (17.6 PPG, 11.4 RPG) being a factor in Asheville, there’s a very real chance that head coach Mike Jones goes 0-5 in Asheville this March. Talented freshmen guards KJ Younger (14.6 PPG, 4.6 RPG, 54 three-pointers) and Lillian Marville (9.4 PPG) will need to shoulder even more offensive responsibility. Donald Whitehead Jr. (10.5 PPG, 2.5 APG) has been the third scorer most nights behind Neely and Younger, but more will be asked of him now that Neely is likely out.

8. Chattanooga (13-18, 7-11 SoCon)​

Dan Earl’s team has been chaotic this season. While the Mocs have some good shooters like Brennan Watkins (46% from 3-point range this season/64-of-139)—the league’s most-accurate 3-point shooter—and Pittsburg State transfer Jordan Frison (16.9 PPG, 3.9 APG)—the league’s most recent SoCon Player of the Week after scoring 33 points against VMI in the regular-season finale and 28 in an earlier loss against UNCG—the lack of an inside scoring presence due to significant injuries to Sean Cusano, Collin Mulholland and Sebastian Hartmann, has made winning especially difficult. So, this season it’s about dying by the three more than living by it. The Mocs hope to live a little longer than expected in Asheville, but it won’t be easy.

9. The Citadel (10-21, 7-11 SoCon)​

The Citadel has been playing good basketball lately, and the Bulldogs believe they can win a game or two in Asheville. This story could be like the one VMI gave us last year, and when guards Braxton Williams (14.4 PPG, 3.1 RPG, 73 made threes) and Christian Moore (11.3 PPG, 3.0 RPG, 61 made threes) and forward Sola Adebisi (9.0 PPG, 5.8 RPG, 33 BLKs) are cooking, the Bulldogs are tough to beat. They’ll need another full game effort to beat a Chattanooga team that blasted them by 21 in the most recent meeting.

10. VMI (6-25, 1-17 SoCon)​

The Keydets are in the middle of a 16-game skid, yet they have been right in the game most nights. TJ Johnson (18.4 PPG, 7.2 RPG) is one of the league’s best scorers, but he will need some help if the Keydets are going to win even one game in Asheville. They also have the chance to do the funniest thing to UNCG once again. The Keydets have connected on a league leading 333 3-pointers this season.

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