xubrew

hey guys. i'm glad some of you have made your way over here and have registered and contributed to the forum with your posts. its kind of elementary, but i enjoy message boards because a) it beats the hell out of sports radio imo, and b) you get to interact with people who are interested in basketball and get different opinions and perspectives on that subject. in the case of this forum, the sunbelt. so i hope that those of you that have come over here continue to come back and post. for those that have read the board but haven't registered, come on in. the waters fine.

in the short time the site has been up, it has actually grown quite a bit. we are now turning our attention toward the college forums and trying to get them active by the beginning of the year. this is kind of a challenge. when taking on such a task, it is generally much harder to get the first ten regular posters than it is to get the next forty posters. you can promote the site, but if they see it isn't active, it just doesn't look appealing because no one wants to talk to themselves. you have to push as hard as you can to get the ball rolling, but once you get the ball rolling it is very easy to gain momentum. that is kinda what we are doing now. we are pushing as hard as we can and are having to do it for 31 different forums. that is why i was so happy to see some people test the waters and post yesterday. i really hope you continue to do so.

as i said before, as a whole the site has made incredible progress. when i first stumbled upon this place, i posted something in the general college forum. a WEEK later when i came back, it had been viewed a total of 9 times and had no replies. needless to say the conference forums weren't seeing any action at all. the majority of sites start off and close up shop due to a lack of traffic like we were experiencing here early on. this place was able to gain momentum, much to the credit of the administrators, and has made incredible progress. our goal is to have all of the forums active by the start of the season. we are serious about it, and we think we can do it.

i don't know why they made me a moderator. you'll have to ask truebluefan or another administrator, but i think they were drunk or something. but nevertheless i'm glad they did. i like doing it as a hobby, i like visiting other forums, and i like getting people to come over here and contribute to this one. i personally requested the sunbelt because i grew up in kentucky and had a lot of respect for western ky. i also knew that although it may not be as mainstream as the major conferences, it still had a hard core fan base and a lot of exciting competitive teams. right now i'm just trying to get it built up and get a good group of posters on here now, and then expand on that leading up to and during next season. after the board gets active (which i hope will happen) and the posters get settled in, i hope to turn it over to one of you. i'm a xavier fan and also do the a-10 board and sec board, so i just wanted to take on the project of getting this place active and then turning it over to someone who associates themselves directly with the conference. if any of you are interested in joining our staff, you can read about it at the top of the board or pm me with any other questions.

as a whole, our goal is quite simple. provide an informative, enjoyable, insightful site that is easy to navigate. we do several things to try and do this. we offer over 70 forums in total. for the college fans like me, we offer 33 total conference forums. we also have the most extensive index of college basketball links ANYWHERE on the internet. how do i know?? i put it together. i went everywhere and i didn't see one that is extensive as hours. we have over 1,000 links consisting of espn pages, message boards, official basketball sites, and other sites relating to the teams. the index is extremely easy to navigate. the links are located at the top of each conference board. if you don't like our site and can't find the link to a site you do like, you are in deep trouble. email me and i'll help you create a site and we'll add that to our index as well.

another unique thing about the site: look around. there are no advertisements or popups. i hate going to a site and having to immediately close three popups the second i enter it into my browser. advertisers just want people to buy things they don't need and we don't need that here. the administrators pay for this place out of their own pockets and with the help of the supporting members. rivals.com and theinsiders.com can't say that.

we do have premium boards for the supporting members, but there is absolutely no pressure to join. out of our 70+ forums, only four are premium, and truth be told i actually haven't visited any of them. unlike a lot of premium sites and boards that have you pay so much a month, our premium rate is $10 a year. thats two value-meals at mcdonalds. this is not a business. it is strictly a hobby for us and the money goes right back into helping pay for the site. the only reason we are here is that we enjoy being here and we enjoy reading what you have to say. other things we offer are a site top 25 where the posters vote, contests throughout the year where you'll get to test your hoops knowledge against other fans in trying to predict the winners, and we are considering starting a bracketology forum during next season.

the server is also extremely efficient. i think in the past six months the site has gone down once and was down for about an hour. voy boards seem to go down every day and are slow as hell and aren't nearly as user friendly as this place. in fact, i find this site faster and easier to navigate than almost all the boards i've been to, and for me that is saying a lot.

anyway, i've said too much and you're probably tired of reading it. this site is for you. we want you to feel welcome here and we want you to feel like you can contribute to it and enjoy being here as well. if you have any ideas or suggestions, you can pm me or post them in our ideas forum. we do look at them and discuss them. if you think you have a good idea, then you're probably right and should tell us. we want you here, we want your insight, and we want you to enjoy posting here and reading the posts of others.

thanks and welcome

MICHAELSPAPPY

Do you expect to add sites for individual teams?

xubrew

right now there aren't any plans to do that. we have links to team message boards in all the conference forums anyway. if traffic gets really heavy, then we may consider it, but right now we are just sticking with the conference forums.