FIRST FLIGHT, FIRST PLACE?

Tennessee Tech’s first SoCon season begins with an audacious assignment: win the thing. The Golden Eagles finished 13–18, went 8–12 in their final OVC season and missed that league’s tournament. Then they changed conferences, hired Tobin Anderson and rebuilt nearly the entire rotation. Trent Mosquera arrives from Le Moyne after averaging 13.5 points and 5.8 rebounds. Davante Hackett scored 13.6 per game at Stonehill, and Ty Owens returns after handing out 3.7 assists. Owens can organize the first action, then Mosquera and Hackett can take over when a possession gets messy. That makeover is why the SoCon’s newest member starts first on our ballot. The biggest caveat sits in the frontcourt. De’Ante Green missed all of last season while recovering from an Achilles injury. At 6-foot-9, he could be Tennessee Tech’s best source of interior scoring and defensive rebounding. A healthy Green lets Anderson surround one mobile big with waves of experienced guards. If he needs time, the league’s stronger frontcourts will know exactly where to press. Chattanooga offers the most dangerous contrast. Tate Darner made 53 threes as a freshman, Matt Hampton averaged 16.9 points and 5.3 assists in junior college, and Tre Powell scored 19.4 per game while shooting 41.5 percent from three at the Division II level. Tyler Houser was supposed to stretch the floor from the frontcourt, but he is expected to miss the season. That leaves Pepperdine transfer Yonatan Levy and returning big Sean Cusano responsible for the screening, passing and rebounding that keep those guards in space. Jordan Frison’s departure still removes a proven closer. Dan Earl now has a deeper audition for that job and enough perimeter creation to force every defense into uncomfortable choices. Last season’s two trophy winners make a tidy order impossible to trust. ETSU won the regular season outright at 13–5, then sixth seeded Furman beat the Bucs 76–61 in the championship game. Brooks Savage and Bob Richey do not have to teach their programs from scratch, although both lost the players who owned the biggest possessions. Maki Johnson and Jordan McCullum survived the roster churn at ETSU, while BJ Ward and Jayden Cooper inherit most of the work with the ball. Furman imported Jaxson Bell, Luka Toews and former Western Carolina forward Marcus Kell for Richey’s motion offense. The Paladins still have to replace Cooper Bowser’s finishing and rebounding, which may be the hardest single job on either roster. VMI is the team that can wreck the middle of the ballot. TJ Johnson averaged 18.3 points, grabbed 7.2 rebounds and made 110 threes last season. Rickey Bradley received a medical redshirt after missing the year, and his healthy return would restore a 16.3-point creator beside Johnson. Western Carolina has its own upset formula in Samuel Dada’s rebounding, Malachi Brown’s ball handling and Isaiah Manning’s shooting at forward. Mercer can drag opponents into lower possession games with Brady Shoulders and Keelan Steele. None is an easy assignment for a favorite still learning the league. Last March explains why certainty is dangerous here. Furman arrived in Asheville as the sixth seed and left with the trophy. This year’s top team has never played a SoCon game and did not even reach its old league tournament. Anderson’s rebuild is good enough to make first place reasonable. The rest of the league gets an entire winter to make sure first flight does not end there.