\"So what are they going to call it? NonPower5Madness.com?\"
Hello all, the Mid-Major Madness team is here to answer all of your mid-major-related/adjacent questions this offseason! If you guys like this, we’ll do more of them throughout the offseason and season. If you don’t like it, we will still do it. Mid-Major Madness Mailbag time Lance Hartzler: As Mid-Major Madness’s resident West Coast Person, […]
LOUDONVILLE, N.Y. – Every single day in between his last day leading the NBA G League’s Sioux Falls Skyforce in 2019 and his first as the new head coach of the Siena Saints, Nevada Smith spent time thinking about how he would approach his next head coaching gig. Over those seven years, he spent six […]
In a conference where the best players often hit the transfer portal at some point, development is more important than ever. We saw it last year in the Missouri Valley with Drew Scharnowski at Belmont, JaQuan Johnson at Bradley, and Will Hornseth at Northern Iowa. Those are just a few examples, but there were plenty […]
NOTE: This story has been updated with additional reporting. As Commissioner Travis Tellitocci and the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference hosted the NCAA Tournament in Buffalo back in March, he kept hearing one question from others in the college athletics space. He even said he heard it from competing coaches. What would the MAAC’s new name […]
WAPPINGERS FALLS, N.Y. — For 38 minutes in between the last pitch of the bottom of the fourth, and the final out of the top of the fifth, everybody in Heritage Financial Park assumed that PJ Craig’s day was done. Except for Craig, his team, and his coaches. The long layoff wasn’t due to a […]
Coming off a strong finish to a season in which it started four freshmen, making a run to the MAAC Tournament Semifinals, Fairfield returned three of those freshmen as part of completing its 2026-27 roster. Mid-Major Madness caught up with Stags head coach Chris Casey on Tuesday. Here is the full exchange (Note: Casey cannot […]
As a firm believer in college basketball coaches wearing suits, I compiled a spreadsheet for the 68-team NCAA Tournament field back in March, detailing the attire each coach and his staff wore on the sidelines during the Big Dance. As an offseason project, I wanted to expand the research to include every coaching staff for […]
NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. — Iona became the first MAAC team to finish its roster, so Mid-Major Madness took a trip to the Hynes Athletic Center to check in with the staff, including head coach Dan Geriot. Here is the Q&A [SF] Go through your roster and describe every player in one word [DG] Kosy Akametu […]
Of the 15 players who made the Horizon League’s All-League teams in 2025-26, just one player – C.J. O’Hara – is set to return to the league, and even he entered the transfer portal, but ended up at Wright State. Players transferring up after productive mid-major seasons is the new norm, and this offseason was […]
Last year, I named Bryan Hodgson, Lennie Acuff and Eric Olen as the three best mid-major hires. I don’t have quite as strong of a conviction on three of them this year – there are a bunch that I really like – but what I did like about that group was how all three had […]
Two years ago, Ben McCollum took a handful of Division-II players with him to Drake from Northwest Missouri State. It was thought to be somewhat of a rebuilding year for the Bulldogs who had lost head coach Darian DeVries to West Virginia, but we know that wasn’t close to reality. Bennett Stirtz, Tavion Banks, Mitch […]
Finn Keating is a self-described hustler. He’s the type of person who always needs to be busy. His classes at Providence College and relationships with his friends are valuable and fulfilling, but he’s eager for more. Keating has long known himself to dive deep into side projects to fill his time and his endless energy. […]
While most that support mid-major basketball think it to be a bad idea, and that includes myself, the Southern Conference announced its support for the expansion of the NCAA Tournament from a 68-team field to 76 teams Tuesday morning by commissioner Michael Cross. Most of us have several questions, and it’s hard to know exactly […]
Leading up to the 2026 MAAC Tournament in Atlantic City, Brendan Coyle was struggling. The sharpshooter who made 94 threes at a 39% clip in his junior season had dipped below 30% as a senior. When he walked on to play for Carm Maciariello in 2022-23, and then redshirted, he probably didn’t envision his career […]
Jake Hall and Uriah Tenette were unknown commodities coming into the 2025-26 season as freshmen at New Mexico. They were signed to UC San Diego by head coach Eric Olen, who took the pair with him to the Lobos when he took the gig. A year later, they’ve become two of the biggest names in […]
Four schools in four years. Playing college basketball into your mid-20s. Maybe even your late-20s. Coming back to school after an excursion in the pros. All that seems crazy … because it is. In fact, 64% of Mid-Major Madness fans believe limiting transfers is a good idea. This question stemmed from President Donald Trump signing […]
INDIANAPOLIS — The two weeks in between Mary Washington’s win over Trinity in the national semifinal and the Division-III National Championship Game in Indianapolis against Emory felt like an eternity for sophomore guard Colin Mitchell. In Emporia, 124 miles south of UMW’s Fredericksburg campus, three days on from helping the Eagles clinch a spot in […]
A year ago, I wrote about my three favorite mid-major coaching hires from that cycle. It featured Eric Olen (New Mexico), Bryan Hodgson (South Florida) and Lennie Acuff (Samford). We now know that Olen made the NIT semifinals in year one, Hodgson made the NCAA Tournament in year one and is off to Providence, and […]
Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the NCAA. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in Mid-Major fans and fans across the country. Sign up here to participate in the weekly emailed surveys. Please take our survey The current wild, wild west nature of college athletics may be coming […]
“One Shining Moment” has played. The 2025-26 college basketball season has come to a close. With that, the final ranking of the Men’s Other Top 25 has been compiled. Utah State closes the season atop the ranking. The Aggies won the Mountain West regular season and tournament championships. They were the only team from the […]
Princeton, who played in a seventh straight NCAA Tournament, closed the 2026 as the No. 1 team in the Women’s Other Top 25. The Tigers finished 26-4 and garnered a 9-seed for the second time in the last three seasons. The Ivy League owned the top two spots in the final ranking as Columbia surged […]
INDIANAPOLIS – Jim Crutchfield notoriously doesn’t watch much basketball outside of his own Nova Southeastern teams, but one has to imagine that the legendary coach cracked a smile as Easton Bazzoli led Gannon to the program’s first ever national championship. While Bazzoli never worked for Crutchfield, he picked up Crutchfield’s famed “System,” and continued it […]
Tonight, graduate senior forward Ben Humrichous will take the floor on the nation’s biggest stage as Illinois prepares to play in its sixth Final Four with a shot at the program’s first ever National Championship on the line. Humrichous’ journey to Indianapolis is about as unique as any you’ll find on the court this weekend, […]
We will get another mid-major in the Final Four – at some point. It’s been bleak. No mid-majors making even the second weekend, let alone the third weekend for a second straight year. We’re just three years removed from TWO mid-majors in the Final Four. We love you San Diego State and Florida Atlantic. Now, […]
INDIANAPOLIS — Brad Underwood turned over every stone to build Illinois’ 2025-26 roster. His embrace of recruiting internationally – specifically in the Balkan region – has brought much fanfare, as has being one of just two high-major programs to offer Keaton Wagler a scholarship. But his roster wasn’t the only part of his program that […]