Mid-Major Minutes: June 3

Good morning! If you’re reading this, you’re clearly starting your day off right with an effort to better yourself by becoming more educated about the goings-on in the mid-major world.

In a landscape so dominated by the biggest schools and conferences, it’s quite hard to winnow down the information you want and need to hear about your favorite mid-major programs.

Thankfully, Mid-Major Madness is here to aggregate the news and links for you, providing you with a brand-new, daily post about the world of mid-major hoops.

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#Content to Read

Scheduling status quo doesn’t help mid-majors (Mark Adams)

Mark Adams, a vocal advocate for strengthening mid-major hoops, wrote a rather lengthy Facebook post about how the current scheduling structure and reliance on large budgets puts mid-majors at a disadvantage. His suggestions are a bit quixotic, but they’re worth pondering.

Southern Utah’s exciting additions for 2017 (The Spectrum)

Ryan Miller of The Spectrum wrote an informative piece about how Todd Simon, Southern Utah’s head coach, will finally have a full roster to use this season. Plenty of fresh faces will join the Thunderbirds, who are looking to improve on the team’s 6-27 record from 2016.

Brackets already? (Joe Lunardi, of course)

It’s early June, and Lunardi already has his first bracket for next season primed and published. If you’re so inclined, go check out which team Minnesota will lose to in the First Round next year! The bracket basically has no weight to it whatsoever, but it’s still kind of interesting to look at, right?

Drick Bernstine is leaving North Dakota (Grand Forks Herald)

Fresh off a trip to the NCAA Tournament, North Dakota is losing a player whose contributions were nothing to shrug at. Bernstine recently announced his intention to transfer on his Instagram page.

As Tom Miller of the Grand Forks Herald wrote:

Bernstine, the son of former NFL player Rod Bernstine, finished his junior year with an average of 8.3 points and 7.5 rebounds. He started 30 of UND's 31 games.

Bernstine, a native of Aurora, Colo., was at his best against Arizona in the first round of March Madness in Salt Lake City. Bernstine scored 20 points and pulled down 15 rebounds.

North Dakota is clearly losing a key asset, and Bernstine himself has not given any indication yet as to which school he will transfer to (although some people have ideas).

Kansas’s mid-major opponents revealed (KU Athletics)

The Kansas Jayhawks announced their non-conference schedule for 2017-18, and it features a myriad of mid-major squads that’ll be trying to pull off an upset in Allen Fieldhouse. Notable opponents include Tennessee State, South Dakota State, and Oakland.

Tanveer Bhullar has a new team (Himself on his Twitter page)

It’s official: Tanveer Bhullar, brother of New Mexico State legend Sim Bhullar, has settled on Missouri State. It’s just more fodder for the grad transfer epidemic crowd. (Did scary music accompanied by a lightning strike not happen when you read that? Based on the opinions of some in the media, I figured it would.)

I think this is about the A-10 & the AAC starting a basketball challenge (FanRag Sports)

Friend of the site Jon Rothstein published a piece that was supposed to be advocating for the A-10 and AAC to start their own basketball challenge. However, most of this is just about his wedding plans and Manhattan summers.

Florida mid-majors on Miami’s schedule (Miami Athletics)

The University of Miami also announced its basketball schedule for the upcoming season, and the Hurricanes will face two Florida-based mid-major teams. Florida A&M and North Florida will both head to Coral Gables to take on a Miami team that’s in many early Top 25 rankings.

Indiana State has a new staff addition (Indiana State Athletics)

Brett Carey is headed to Terre Haute to join the Sycamores’ coaching staff. Carey spent basically all of the last decade at his alma mater, UNC Asheville. Indiana State highlighted just a snippet of what Carey brings to the table for them:

...Carey played key roles in helping the Bulldogs to back-to-back Big South Conference championships in 2011 and 2012 as an assistant coach. Since his ascension to Associate Head Coach the Bulldogs have had back-to-back 20-win seasons and claimed the 2016 Big South Tournament title and a share of the 2016-17 Big South Conference regular-season championship. The Bulldogs advanced to the NCAA Tournament in 2016 and played in the 2017 CollegeInsider.com Tournament.

Pizza’s the key to the Ivy League (Yahoo)

Yale is a notoriously tough school to get accepted to, but one girl may have just figured out the secret to Ivy League application success: write about the most mediocre delivery pizza there is. Kudos to the girl for being creative, but Papa John’s is just not great, you guys.

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Tweets of Interest

Bill & Mary is doing some RPI smack talk

Evan Bradds is getting hardware

Chris did another mailbag!

A bit of Big 5 scheduling news from who else but Jon

Cal has finally lost it

Following doctor’s orders here:

slack’s wild, y’all

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Recruiting News

NJIT picked up a great commit from a JUCO guy who knows how to score.