BelowTheRim

Basketball from mid-majors to the NBA🏀
rankings, stats, portal moves & unbiased takes #BTR

[BelowTheRim @theBelowTheRim]

BTR Close to the Fire 🔥 🏀
Which Power teams in the early college basketball season are already in trouble after Week 1?

A few results stand out as real concerns. Others are getting overreacted to. Here’s the breakdown ⬇️

[BelowTheRim @theBelowTheRim]

@OdjHoops Muggsy 2.0

[BelowTheRim @theBelowTheRim]

-60.5 sounds better

[BelowTheRim @theBelowTheRim]

ONLY a 58.5 pt live favorite…👀 UCLA

[BelowTheRim @theBelowTheRim]

ONLY a 58.5 pt live favorite…👀 UCLA

[BelowTheRim @theBelowTheRim]

@MarchMadnessMBB @SECNetwork I saw wings for a second.

[BelowTheRim @theBelowTheRim]

@studurando 🤯👀 Legit

[BelowTheRim @theBelowTheRim]

Who’s your biggest riser and biggest faller in the Mid-Major Top 25?

Saint Louis still #1. High Point & Santa Clara both 3-0. Dayton falls after the 1-2 start.

Full ranking ⬇️⬇️

[BelowTheRim @theBelowTheRim]

@kreadony @grok Connect for all things 🏀

[BelowTheRim @theBelowTheRim]

I’m curious where people actually land on this.

Which mid-major program do you think is best positioned to keep its best players over the next two years — and why?

And do you think the current system is net positive or net negative for the overall health of college basketball?

Drop your thoughts 💭

[BelowTheRim @theBelowTheRim]

🏀 Mid-Majors Have Quietly Become the Power Conference’s Farm System 🏀

The transfer portal didn’t just increase player movement. It fundamentally changed the job of most mid-major programs.
They are no longer primarily competing with each other for the long term. They are now developing talent that Power conferences will try to buy every spring.

Here’s what the DATA and the last two offseasons actually show. Read Below ⬇️
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[BelowTheRim @theBelowTheRim]

The open question is whether this is sustainable for the middle of the sport.

Can enough mid-major programs still build competitive, relatively stable rosters in a system that financially rewards them for developing talent and then removes that talent?

Or has the portal + NIL combination permanently turned most of the mid-major level into a developmental league?

[BelowTheRim @theBelowTheRim]

This is the part that is quietly changing the job description for a large portion of D1 coaches.
You are no longer ONLy trying to win your conference. You are trying to develop players well enough that a program with a significantly larger NIL budget notices them — and then replace those players the next offseason.

That is a different job than the one most of these coaches signed up for.

[BelowTheRim @theBelowTheRim]

The competitive balance argument is the one that rarely gets stated cleanly. When the best mid-major talent is regularly removed after one productive season, the gap between the top of the sport and the middle does not stay static. It widens.

You can still have Cinderella runs. You just cannot expect the same core to still be there the following year.

[BelowTheRim @theBelowTheRim]

There are still exceptions. A small group of programs have either enough NIL resources or enough brand value to keep proven players. Gonzaga is the clearest example, even after moving conferences.

A handful of others (certain Mountain West, Missouri Valley, and WCC programs) are also better positioned than the average mid-major.
For everyone else, the math is much harder.

[BelowTheRim @theBelowTheRim]

Some programs are adapting in real time, while a number of mid-majors that lost their starting bigs have deliberately gotten smaller. Others have shifted harder toward international recruiting and high-upside freshmen who have not yet been fully priced by the portal market.
These are logical responses. They also mean the on-court product at a lot of mid-major schools will look different this season than it has in recent years.

[BelowTheRim @theBelowTheRim]

This creates a structural problem that most people understate. Mid-major coaches can still develop players. They can still scheme. They can still win their leagues.

What they increasingly cannot do is build multi-year continuity with their best players once those players produce. The incentive structure rewards short-term development over long-term retention.

[BelowTheRim @theBelowTheRim]

The CAA offers a clear example. 9/11 players who earned all-conference or honorable mention honors last season (and still had eligibility) entered the portal.

Six of them landed at Power Four schools. A strong mid-major season is now, in many cases, an extended tryout.

[BelowTheRim @theBelowTheRim]

This past summer, Power programs added 65 mid-major bigs or combo forwards. At the same time, only 15 of 67 teams across the Pac-12, A-10, American, Mountain West, WCC, and Missouri Valley returned their starting big.

That is not normal attrition. That is systematic extraction of the most valuable positional group in the sport.

[BelowTheRim @theBelowTheRim]

Duke’s lack of A Guy offensively, is going to be there demise. Need someone they can go to when things are tight or need a spark.

[BelowTheRim @theBelowTheRim]

Kentucky looked lost against the Jayhawks last night. Was KU ranked too low to start the season? They are looking like a top 5 team in the country!

Stokes dropped 23 pts, 10 reb but that was secondary to Tre White’s efficient 30 on nearly 70% shooting. That level of production is going to be hard to beat.