Rising Sun: Sun Belt Power Rankings

Jim Brown-USA TODAY Sports

Well well, what a busy couple of weeks it has been here on Wave The Red Towel. Last week saw the departure of Bobby Petrino from the Hill, our first ever interviews, and yesterday we debuted our Sun Belt Roundball Roundup, which we will continue to update every Monday until the end of the season.

Another new weekly update we are going to bring to you fine folk is a power rankings of the 10 SBC teams, which you can expect every Tuesday! Our rankings, which we so cleverly titled “Rising Sun,” (get it, Sun Belt?) are comprised in a collaboration of our writing staff (which, as of now, is a whopping two people!) and the reasoning behind their ranking is provided by, as Fletcher likes to call me, our resident basketball guru.

So, without further adieu, our first ever Rising Sun Power Rankings.

Team	Rank	Record	The Story So Far
	1	3-0, 10-6	Panthers remain unbeaten in SBC; They are hot of late as they are on a 7 game win streak; Their guards provide versatile play making and shooting abilities; The cause the FT line to be very lethal; Have a good defense that can dismantle the opposing offense in a variety of ways.
	2	3-1, 10-5	They are a decent shooting team; Their good FT shooting gives them an extra offensive element; They tend to score a good amount of points; Their only true blemish is one bad loss at home to Troy.
	3	2-1, 10-6	Overall has the best team line-up; Their versatile bench can cause momentum to help the starters get going; They have a decent shooting team; They have a good defense; Have a lot of turnovers; Can be very streaky; Very inconsistent from the FT line.
	4	3-1, 8-8	They have a decent FT shooting team; Has some perimeter shooting but tends to be streaky; Has an okay defense with a decent rebounding core; They need more defensive versatility to stop a top team.
	5	2-2, 7-9	Good shooting team and can go on a shooting clinic at any given time; Has a decent rebounding team; Not the best defensive team; Even with a limited defense, the Trojans look to be a very scary middle of the pack team.
	6	1-1, 10-5	This team scores a lot of points; They have good shooters in all areas; Their offense includes a lot of ball movement; With a lot of ball movement comes a lot of turnovers.
	7	1-2, 4-7	The Warhawks have a decent shooting team; They are terrible at the FT line; They aren’t much of a perimeter shooting team; The have the ability to rebound effectively; Although they can rebound the do not have the best defense; As a whole they have a lot of turnovers.
	8	1-3, 6-10	Even with this team being a lower ranked team this team puts up a lot of points; They are a decent shooting team; Along with some perimeter shooting; Their offenses allows a lot of turnovers; They tend to be an average FT shooting team.
	9	1-2, 5-11	The Bobcats are an okay shooting team; Tend to be very streaky at the FT line; provide an okay rebounding ability; Not the best overall defense.
	10	0-4, 6-11	Jags are winless in the SBC; They are not a good shooting team; Only one player truly stands out; They do have some perimeter shooting; Tend to be average in FT shooting; They can rebound but do not have the best defense. To put it plainly, they are just plain bad.

So, where did Fletcher and I mess up? We went back and forth on where the Louisiana schools should be, and who knows, maybe next week they’ll prove they belong higher. But, don’t forget, that it is only week 1, and there’s still plenty of basketball to be played.

Let us know in a tweet or comment what your thoughts on the rankings are!

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