Kyle Whelliston: Mid-major preview (teams/players) - ESPN

Middle Tennessee listed as one of the top mid-majors in the country…

also, former A-Sun foe, Belmont

owl09 said

also, former A-Sun foe, Belmont

They need to define "mid major"…

The SBC has an RPI of 18/32…

The A-Sun is of 29/32…….

yes… they are using a very loose definition of "mid major"

i usually break college basketball into 3 segments:

power conferences (bcs conferences)
mid major conferences (sun belt, missouri valley, a-10, conference usa, etc, etc)
minor conference (atlantic sun, meac… basically, all the one bid conferences)

however, this article is apparently using 2 segments: power and mid major

owl09, you sound very familiar to me...

according to wikipedia:
Mid-major - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The term "mid-major" does not generally apply to schools belonging to the following six Bowl Championship Series (BCS) conferences:

Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC)
Big 12 Conference
Big East Conference
The University of Notre Dame, otherwise a Big East member, retains its independent status in football.
Big Ten Conference
Pacific 10 Conference (Pac-10)
Southeastern Conference (SEC)


The term "mid-major" is sometimes used to describe all of the other 31 conferences not normally considered to be a major conference. Most of the time, the term is specifically applied to only the non-major conferences that consistently produce quality teams. Often the definition of a basketball mid-major will be of a conference that can put at least one at-large bid in the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament as well as have a team or teams advance fairly regularly, while not garnering the attention and television dollars of a major conference. The conferences most likely to be considered a mid-major include [1][7][8]:

Atlantic 10 Conference (A-10)
Colonial Athletic Association (CAA)
Conference USA (C-USA)
Horizon League
Mid-American Conference (MAC)
Missouri Valley Conference (MVC)
Mountain West Conference (MWC)
West Coast Conference (WCC)
Western Athletic Conference (WAC)

I lke 09's version better…the wiki entry says all other 31…then says only 9 are "likely" to be mentioned as such…

the A-Sun should never be mentioned in the same sentence as "mid major"…

mnior is most fitting…