United Athletic Conference

You do a lot of the mid-major games out there for like the WCC.

You were doing the WAC, so very curious to see if the United Conference makes your list this year.

But that said, how are you trying to prepare for the upcoming season with a lot of teams, even at the mid-major ranks, not knowing what the rosters are going to look like?

No, it is so random.

They're coming.

The Big Sky, the Ivy League, the Southland, the Horizon, the Sunbelt, the SoCon, the Big South, the Summit League, the ASUN, the Metro, the OVC, and the newly founded UAC.

And then the low major, I have Patriot, SWAC, MEAC, A-East, and NEC.

Okay.

there are two conferences that are built off of that, both with a bid to the NCAA tournament, but there's one conference umbrella, and so reduced expenses, and you have an opportunity with 16, 17 schools to have more revenue opportunities under that umbrella.

And so how I would classify it is on one side, it's the United Athletic Conference, which was formerly the WACC, And that is probably more considered football-centric with schools like Austin Peay and Eastern Kentucky, who you guys remember in our league, Central Arkansas, but they've added UT Arlington and Tarleton State and Abilene Christian.

And they're now the United Athletic.

United Athletic Conference.

Which is a partner conference to you.

Partner, yep.

You'd like to see like a kind of a Kent state type performance, you know, like last year where we scored 77 or I believe it was.

So again, I just want to see kind of some of those things, but you know, Obviously, Central Arkansas, FCS opponent, they're in the United Conference.

Excuse me.

Gosh, I cannot speak today, guys.

He's such a wealth of knowledge on so many of these conferences, whether it be OVC.

He's one of the few people, along with myself, that's looking at the United Conference.

That makes me very happy, as this podcast was the first ever to do a United Conference College Basketball Preview Podcast over the last few days.

Again, his book of world records needs to put me in there for that and so much more.

And we always love having Isaac aboard.

I'll give you guys a little bit of a roundup there.

I picked a good day to do the first ever United Conference preview podcast for college basketball.

I checked, I scoured the ends of the earth to make sure that I was actually the first one to do a United Conference preview podcast for college basketball because I saw some for college football because obviously football season has began.

But on the podcast yesterday, you got the first ever United Conference preview podcast in college basketball.

Record-setting podcast.

Good way to be able to kick things off all by myself because I'm sure that many of you saw the news.

That is history, folks.

They play in the United Conference, which is like a conglomeration of, I think, like the WAC and the Atlantic Sun, I want to say, which is a wild combination.

But first game, first home game ever for the North Alabama Lions, who are a recent Division I team.

They've only been in Division I like maybe five years or so.

So hopefully you've been enjoying that.

You got the SWAC a little bit earlier on last weekend, and probably will be looking at the United Conference and the WCC relatively soon.

Then once we're back in season, and we're getting close, picks and analysis on every single game, every single day.

So I appreciate you tuning in today, and I'll be back with you once again tomorrow.

First question I'm going to ask, and then I'll turn it over to Brian, and then we'll take some shots back and forth for as long as we have you here.

Was there more of a sense of urgency this offseason coming off the conference tournament win to keep the roster in contention, obviously, with the breakup of the Atlantic Sun and half the league moving over to form the United Athletic Conference with the WAC? Was there...

A bigger deal being made about who to bring back, who to try to retain, and who to get to replace those who moved on?

That's an interesting question.