Ouch. That is a tough loss for UNT. An outstanding freshman performer, up and gone. Kind of hate seeing that sort of thing for our conference. Then again, it's becoming pretty commonplace across the board.
As the last couple of years demonstrated, the conference appeared to make some headway overall. Especially the top half of the conference. I won't rehash the bottom third. Historically it was unusual for MT to be in the frontrunner seat, but a handful of other conference teams usually rise to chase and compete with a frontrunner having big success. That seems to go for other sports as well. It seems that dynamic really started to show itself this past season. In the case of WKU, it seemed to happen with much imitation on behalf of Stansbury. Regardless, it was good to see the top of the conference really make make some big strides forward. Regarding the bottom of the standings, a couple of these teams replaced their coaches early as they did not tolerate losing. Those programs with new coaches will in all likelihood be highly competitive teams in conference within the next few years.