Southern Comfort

There’s a lot of conversation right now about how the No. 1 seed in this tournament might be one and done.

And honestly?

I get it.

Western Carolina is the hottest team in the Southern Conference right now by a mile. They’ve been stacking wins, playing with confidence, and look like a team that suddenly remembered March exists. Momentum like that matters in Asheville. It always has.

Meanwhile ETSU, the regular season champion, enters the tournament having lost two straight games to close the year.

Hot team.
Cold team.
Bracket collision coming.

That is the kind of formula that gets people talking.

And right now the conversation around the league is pretty simple. The No. 1 seed might be vulnerable.

Again, I understand it.

But the funny thing about this bracket is the more you stare at it, the more it starts to feel familiar.

Because the last time the Southern Conference tournament started to feel like this, it was 2020.

Before we get to that comparison though, it is worth acknowledging something about this year’s field. There are legitimately good teams across this bracket.

Wofford is the kind of team that survives tournaments. They are disciplined, organized, and rarely beat themselves. Watching them play sometimes feels like attending a very efficient accounting seminar, but accounting seminars tend to win basketball games in March.

Samford brings the opposite personality. They play fast, aggressive basketball and when their offense gets rolling they can turn a game sideways in about four minutes. That kind of pace makes them dangerous because tournaments reward teams that can create runs. Also, Jadin Booth. Enough said.

Furman has been around this stage enough that Asheville does not intimidate them. Their system works, their offense moves the ball well, and when they are shooting confidently they can beat anyone in this league.

Mercer and Chattanooga are both capable of causing problems if things break their way. I still believe Chattanooga is a good team. The ball just has not bounced their way very often this season. They have been in plenty of games and have the talent to make things uncomfortable for someone if they find a rhythm in Asheville. Mercer, meanwhile, tends to go as far as its starting five can take it. Their starters are good enough to compete with anyone in this league, but the bench has not provided much separation, which can become a real factor in a tournament where depth often decides things late.

And then there is Western Carolina.

Right now the Catamounts look like the team nobody wants to see.

They are comfortably the hottest team in the conference, and they are playing with the type of confidence that tends to carry into tournaments. When a team starts winning like that late in the season, every opponent suddenly becomes a little nervous about being the one that stops the run.

Which is exactly why there is so much talk about the bracket setting up for an upset.

But this is where things get interesting.

Because if you go back and look at the 2020 Southern Conference tournament, both the structure of the bracket and the way people were talking about it at the time feel almost identical to what we are seeing now.

That year the league entered Asheville with a clear regular season champion sitting at the top of the bracket. Behind them were several disciplined challengers, a few teams capable of getting hot, and one particularly dangerous middle seed.

That middle seed?

Western Carolina.

In 2020 the Catamounts knocked off Mercer and suddenly found themselves staring at the No. 1 seed in the semifinals. For about 24 hours everyone started convincing themselves that this was the moment the tournament favorite might finally stumble.

Then ETSU beat them by twenty two. I remember seeing Cole Spivey’s soul leave his body when we were up 17 in the first half.

On the other side of the bracket that year, Wofford quietly carved its way through the field. They beat Furman. They beat Chattanooga. They did not do anything flashy. They just played organized basketball until suddenly they were standing in the championship game.

Which set up the final.

ETSU versus Wofford.

The regular season champion against the league’s most disciplined challenger.

ETSU won 72 to 58 and cut the nets.

Simple.

Now fast forward to this bracket.

Western Carolina sits in that same dangerous middle section of the bracket, entering the tournament as the hottest team in the conference.

Wofford once again sits on the opposite side looking like the type of team that could quietly grind its way through the bracket simply by doing the fundamentals well.

And ETSU once again sits at the top, hearing plenty about how vulnerable they might be after dropping two straight games heading into the tournament.

Which is how tournament narratives usually work.

Everyone spends a few days explaining why the favorite is about to fall.

Then the games start.

Now, could Western Carolina keep the heater going? Absolutely. Momentum in March is real, and they have more of it than anyone in the league right now.

Could Wofford methodically work its way into the championship again? Also very possible. The Terriers are built for tournaments.

But if the bracket starts unfolding the way the 2020 tournament did, the path becomes pretty easy to imagine.

Western Carolina rides its momentum into the semifinal.

Because right now the Catamounts are playing the best basketball in the conference and it is not particularly close. They are confident, they are scoring, and they already swept ETSU during the regular season. That is exactly the kind of storyline that gets people whispering about a top seed going home early.

But here is the uncomfortable truth about college basketball.

It is really hard to beat a good team three times.

Western Carolina already got ETSU twice this year. That alone tells you how good the Catamounts are right now. But tournament basketball has a funny way of correcting things. Coaches adjust. Matchups change. Teams that lost earlier suddenly show up with a very different game plan.

If those two teams meet again in Asheville, I think ETSU finally figures it out.

Not easily. Not comfortably. But I think they figure it out.

Meanwhile on the other side of the bracket, things feel a little simpler.

Wofford and Furman look like the collision course there. And if that game happens, it will probably look exactly how every Wofford Furman game looks. Organized basketball, half court offense, and forty minutes of someone hitting just enough threes to survive.

I lean Wofford in that matchup. Not by much. Furman absolutely could win it. That game is about as close to a coin flip as this tournament has. But Wofford tends to shoot the ball just a little better in those situations, and that usually decides games like that.

Which brings us to the championship.

ETSU versus Wofford.

Again.

Yes, Western Carolina is hot.

Yes, ETSU lost two straight heading into the tournament.

Yes, people are convinced the top seed might be one and done.

Nonetheless, when the nets come down Monday night, I still think ETSU is the team cutting them.

Because sometimes momentum matters.

Sometimes chaos wins.

And if that happens, someone should probably check on the Scissors Police, who were very concerned about proper net cutting protocol last week.