UNC Asheville Selected as 2017-18 Men's Basketball Preseason Favorite
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (www.BigSouthSports.com) – UNC Asheville’s men’s basketball program has been chosen as the favorite in the Big South Conference’s annual preseason poll for the 2017-18 season. The announcement was made today at the Renaissance Suites Hotel in Charlotte, N.C., as part of the league’s 2017-18 Basketball Tip-Off Media Luncheon.
Asheville, last year’s co-regular-season champion, is the preseason favorite for the first time since 2011-12. The Bulldogs collected 23 of the 29 votes cast and finished with 278 points in the preseason ranking. Asheville returns three starters and 10 letterwinners from a squad that went 23-10 overall, 15-3 in Big South games and received an at-large bid into the Collegeinsider.com postseason tournament last year. This is the fifth time that the Bulldogs are the Big South’s men’s basketball preseason favorite, as the four previous times were 1989-90, 1997-98, 2002-03 and 2011-12.
Defending Big South champion Winthrop (three first-place votes) edged out Liberty (one first-place vote) for second place in the men’s balloting with 244 points, just ahead of the Flames’ 241. Campbell (two first-place votes) was fourth with 187 points –- the Camels’ highest Big South preseason ranking since being the North Division favorite in 2012-13. Gardner-Webb landed in the fifth spot with 167 points, High Point was sixth with 146 and Radford was seventh with 141. Charleston Southern totaled 98 points for eighth, followed by Longwood (ninth, 57 points) and Presbyterian College (10th, 36 points).
Big South men's basketball tips off Friday, Nov. 10 with nine games. The first conference date is Saturday, Dec. 30, and the season culminates with the 2018 Big South Men's Basketball Championship Feb. 27-March 4.
2017-18 Men’s Basketball Preseason Poll
| RK - Team (first-place votes) |
Points |
| 1 - UNC Asheville (23) |
278 |
| 2 - Winthrop (3) |
244 |
| 3 - Liberty (1) |
241 |
| 4 - Campbell (2) |
187 |
| 5 - Gardner-Webb |
167 |
| 6 - High Point |
146 |
| 7 - Radford |
141 |
| 8 - Charleston Southern |
98 |
| 9 - Longwood |
57 |
| 10 - Presbyterian College |
36 |
Note: points are based on a weighted system. First-place votes received 10 points, followed by 9 points for second-place, and so on.