Belmont is out this year. Northern Kentucky is in. With Belmont leaving, this conference sets up to be the most highly contested race that nobody is watching. Both Mercer & S. Carolina Upstate finished last year with conference records of 13-5 each. They figure to be neck & neck again this year to the end. Both teams return virtually the same rosters from a year ago & figure to both finish with a low to mid single digit figure in the loss column this year. I like S. Carolina Upstate to win it. Both teams can play and are likely to give all of their bigger conference foes all they can handle and more this year. I expect them to win some of these road matchups straight up this year. Aside from these two teams, I can only see Fla Gulf Coast & North Florida within this conference as teams with potential to have an impact on this race (but not contend).