Justin Glover is the RTC correspondent for the Southern Conference.

Updated Standings:

Quick Hits – The Southern Conference is beginning to take shape after just two weeks into the “second half” of the 2009-10 college basketball season. The standings look awfully familiar to last season with the North led by a tie between Western Carolina (3-1) and Chattanooga (3-1). The South Division is being lead by the College of Charleston who has a perfect 5-0 conference record. The question that is starting to take shape around mid-majors is can the SoCon put two teams to the big dance this season? In my opinion, in order for the SoCon to have two invitations to March Madness the Catamounts would have to earn somewhere around 24-25 wins. The other half would be to have WCU face College of Charleston in the finals trying to convince the committee that wins on the road against Louisville & Bradley will be enough to get the Catamounts into the tournament if Charleston wins the SoCon tournament.

Other Notes — Don’t sleep on Wofford and Chattanooga who both have started to get hot in recent weeks. Wofford on a four-game winning streak and Chattanooga on a six-game winning streak.

Most Disappointing Teams — Now that Georgia Southern has gotten its first win in conference the Elon Phoenix are clearly the worst team in the Southern Conference so far this season. The Phoenix have been getting blown out almost every game and sit at just 3-13 overall.

Sizzling players — Appalachian State’s Donald Sims is playing his best basketball of the season after scoring 44 points against Davidson and has led the Mountaineers in scoring in ten games this season. Furman’s Amu Saaka has played well lately scoring 30+ in two straight games against conference opponents.

Important Upcoming Match-ups:

• Sat. Jan 16^th – Davidson@Wofford, Spartanburg, S.C. 7 p.m. – Tough road match-up for a battle of 3-2 records in conference.
• Wed Jan 20^th – WCU@Davidson, Davidson, N.C. 7 p.m. – Western travels to Davidson looking to earn a solid road conference win.
• Fri Jan 22^nd –  Wofford@College of Charleston, Charleston, S.C. 7 p.m. – Wofford looks to take down the top team in the Southern Conference on the road.
• Sat Jan 23^rd –  WCU@Appalachian State, Boone, N.C. 3 p.m. – Old time rivalry between two teams that really don’t like each other should present a solid game in Boone.

Team Breakdowns:

• Appalachian State (9-7): The Mountaineers have won two straight conference games earning them a 3-2 SoCon record. On January 9^th Appalachian State won on the road against Davidson, 78-68, thanks to a stellar performance from Donald Sims who scored 44 points in the victory. On January 13^th they defeated Elon 89-65 getting 20 points from Kellen Brand to lead the way.
• Chattanooga (11-6): The Mocs are riding a six-game winning streak and a 3-1 SoCon record after defeating UNC-Greensboro 58-45 on January 11^th thanks to 14 points from Ty Patterson. Chattanooga kept its winning streak in tact after Keegan Bell knocked down a huge three as time expired to shock the Citadel at home, 56-54, on January 14^th. Bell finished the game with 11 points to lead the Mocs.
• College of Charleston (10-6): The Cougars are also riding a nice four-game win streak thanks to two more conference victories this week. Two road wins for the College of Charleston improve its SoCon record to 5-0. The first was a win over the Citadel, 61-55, thanks to 22 points from Andrew Goudelock. The Cougars then beat Samford 78-67 on January 14^th with Goudelock leading the way with 23 points.
• Davidson (8-9): The Wildcats went 1-1 this past week losing at home to Appalachian State, 78-68, but earn a nice road win against Furman, 86-81, on January13^th. Will Archambault scored 15 points in the victory. The Wildcats are still trying to find out its identity in the Southern Conference looking for that signature win.
• Elon (3-13): The Phoenix are currently on a seven-game losing streak and only 1-4 in the SoCon. Elon was defeated by Wofford, 72-55, and lost to Appalachian State, 89-65, in the past week. Elon will be looking to break its losing streak in the upcoming weeks.
• Furman (8-8): The Paladins have lost two-straight conference games to drop to 2-3 in the SoCon. Furman was defeated on January 9^th against UNC-Greensboro, 88-78, but Amu Saaka scored 31 points in the loss. On January 13^th Furman lost to Davidson 86-81 with Saaka getting 34 points in that loss.
• Georgia Southern (4-14): The Eagles earned its first win in conference after defeating Western Carolina at home 81-76. Willie Powers lead the Eagles with 19 points in the victory. The win against the Catamounts stopped a nine-game losing streak for Georgia Southern. On January 14^th the Eagles lost to Wofford 71-57 on the road to fall to 1-4 in the SoCon.
• Samford (7-9): The Bulldogs went 1-1 last week earning a victory against Tennessee-Temple, 62-52, getting 19 points from Bryan Friday in the victory. On January 14^th lost at home, 78-67, to the College of Charleston falling to 1-3 in the SoCon.
• The Citadel (8-9): The Citadel lost two-straight conference games this past week losing to the College of Charleston at home, 61-55, and losing a heart-breaker against Chattanooga, 56-54, on a last second three pointer. The Citadel did get 28 points from Cameron Wells in the loss against the Mocs.
• UNC-Greensboro (3-14): The Spartans went 1-2 in the past week ending the week by losing to Western Carolina 79-69 to fall to 2-4 in the SoCon. The Spartans started their week off well, defeating Furman 88-78 at home but fell to Chattanooga on January 11^th 58-45 on the road getting 10 points by Brandon Evans in the loss.
• Western Carolina (13-3): The Catamounts started the week with a tough road loss against Georgia Southern, 81-76, with Kendall Russell scoring 18 points in the loss. Western Carolina bounced back with a nice home victory over UNC-Greensboro 79-69 on January 14^th.
• Wofford (11-7): Wofford has won four straight games and three straight conference games to run its SoCon record to 3-2. On January 14^th the Terriers defeated Georgia Southern 71-57 earning its eleventh win of the season. Two of the victories came on the road for Wofford at UNC-Greensboro on January 7^th (79-62) and at Elon on January 9^th (72-55).

Justin Glover is the RTC correspondent for the Southern Conference.

Quick look at the early standings with overall records…

NORTH

1. Chattanooga 2-0
2. Appalachian State 2-1
3. Western Carolina 1-1
4. Elon 1-2
5. UNC Greensboro 0-2

SOUTH

1. Furman 2-0
2. Wofford 2-1
3. Charleston 1-1
4. Citadel 1-1
5. Georgia Southern 1-2
6. Davidson 0-2

Some of the top storylines from the Southern Conference are Wofford playing tough basketball early after nearly defeating Pittsburgh on the road before losing 63-60.  The Terriers held a 10-point lead with ten minutes to play after junior preseason all-conference honoree Noah Dahlman scored 20 points and seven rebounds to almost shock Pittsburgh at home.

Davidson opened its 2009-10 campaign with a tough loss on the road against #10 Butler, 73-62.  The Wildcats were only down two points heading into the second half but the Bulldogs pulled away late.  Sophomore forward Ben Allison scored 13 points and had seven rebounds in the loss.

Wofford continued its solid play by defeating Georgia 60-57 on the road and really boosted the conference RPI with that win.  Dahlman was again in double figures with 11 points.

Another nice storyline to follow in the next couple of weeks is how good can Furman and Chattanooga could be after both starting the year at 2-0.

Two players from the Southern Conference who came through for their respective teams were Josh Bonney (Elon) and Jordan Miller (Furman).  Bonney led Elon in scoring for the week, averaging 16.7 PPG in three games last week against Lipscomb, Charlotte, and Coastal Carolina, achieving a career-high 24 points in that season opener against Lipscomb, a 91-86 victory.  Miller scored 23 points in the season opener against Lees-McRae in a 88-49 win, then followed up that performance with ten points against Presbyterian in a 68-64 victory.

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Andrew Baker from Mid Major Review is the RTC correspondent for the Southern and Atlantic Sun Conferences.

Early Season Musings

The beginning of the season has been a normal one for the Southern Conference.  The SoCon isn’t doing too well out of conference against Division I opposition.  Ten of the conferences 15 wins have come against non D-I opponents.  This stat makes it real difficult to foresee any chance of the SoCon seeing a second bid.  Since it is so early in the season, we will go over the three teams that we spoke in depth about in our SoCon Preview.

The leaders with three victories are the College of Charleston Cougars.  Charleston finished 3rd in their own Charleston Classic last weekend with their lone defeat coming against a good Temple team.  Through two games they are being led by sophomore guard Andrew Goudelock at 17.5 PPG with senior forwards Dustin Scott and Jermaine Johnson contributing 10.5 PPG.  The Cougars played Charleston Southern and picked up a 10-point win over the Pirates 93-83 last night.  The Cougars have a game against MEAC  member South Carolina State on Monday before playing South Carolina in a week’s time.  It should be a dandy.

Even with the loss the other night to Oklahoma, the Davidson Wildcats and Stephen Curry are looking pretty good.  After ripping Guilford and James Madison, the Wildcats played competitively against the Sooners before succumbing 82-78 on Tuesday night.  Curry dropped 44 points against the Sooners, scoring well over half of his team’s output.  There is no doubt that Curry is the heart and soul, going 12-29 from the field and 14-14 from the free throw line against OU.  Only one other Wildcat managed to score in double digits.  The Wildcats did a wonderful job of taking care of the ball by only committing 5 turnovers in the game.  The Cats go from Oklahoma to the return game of last seasons Bracketbusters against Winthrop tonight.  In the next two weeks they will continue their quest to beat the big boys against North Carolina State and West Virginia.  Davidson should be able to stay competitive against any team if Curry continues to drop 37.5 PPG.

Appalachian State had an interesting opening week.  In their first game they dropped a high scoring affair to UNC-Wilmington 108-101.  Then Wednesday night they played an absolute barnburner against Charlotte.  The 49ers took ASU to double overtime at home in Boone before the Mountaineers finally topped UNCC 87-84 over 50 minutes of basketball.  It’s still early, but because of the two high scoring games they have been in, App State has six players averaging in double figures.  Donald Sims and Kellen Brand are leading them at this very early point in the season.  The real problem for the Mounts has been turnovers.  In the two games against UNC-Wilmington and Charlotte they had 27 and 22 turnovers, respectively.  It could be a real long season for App State if they can’t find someone to take care of the ball.  We will see if the Mounts are improving on Saturday when they visit Niagara.  A week from then they will host Campbell before beginning their two December conference games.

It’s still early for the Southern Conference, but if they ever expect to get that second bid into the NCAA Tournament they have to start scheduling more difficult opposition and then have to beat that opposition.  As was stated before, 66% of their current win total is against non-Division I opponents.  This is not a good way to impress anyone, especially the NCAA tourney committee when it comes time to perhaps award a second bid to Davidson, should they fall in the conference tournament.  It could be the snub that will be talked about for a long time.