Saturday, October 02, 2004
battle of the bands?
Life in the SWAC, courtesy of Joe Schiefelbein. Read the excerpt. Feel less guilty. Then return to focusing on the power and mid-major conferences and teams that interest you.The basketball in the Southwestern Athletic Conference can often lack fanfare and certainly almost always misses out on national respect. An unofficial Rating Percentage Index had the SWAC as the second-to-worst Division I basketball conference in the nation last season.
Even among SWAC fans, they love their football teams and their bands way more than they love the round ball. That being said, the SWAC often plays out as tough a league as there is in college basketball.
Balance is the key denominator. Five teams finished tied for fourth place. And second-place Alabama State had just two more wins, at 11-7, than those in fourth place, at 9-9. There is no substitute for mental toughness in this conference. Most of the gyms are small, but that can only turn crowds at Alcorn State and Alabama A&M and Mississippi Valley State into raucous atmospheres.
The conference road trips stretch into a five-day affair, starting on Friday and finishing with a late bus ride home immediately after a Monday night game, getting back on campus early Tuesday morning.
