FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – If you want to correctly pick the order of finish in the 2014-15 Sunshine State Conference men's basketball race, you might first consider taking out an ad in your local newspaper: "Wanted! Soothsayers, Tarot Card Readers, Mediums, Psychics, Time Travelers and others proficient at predicting the future. Crystal Balls Recommended but not Required!"
 
Nine SSC head coaches recently took a stab at the prophesy game and here's what they saw for the 2014-15 league race (first place votes in parentheses):

1. Florida Southern: (7) 63 points
2. Barry: (2) 57
3. Nova Southeastern: 47
4. Florida Tech: 31
4. Tampa: 31
6. Saint Leo: 30
7. Eckerd: 22
7. Rollins: 22
9. Lynn: 21
 
NSU head coach Gary Tuell thought about drawing nine names from a hat. Instead, he dug into attic boxes to find a childhood toy, the Magic 8 Ball, before submitting his ballot.
 
"Almost 70 percent of the starters from the 2013-14 season return in our league," Tuell notes. "That's an extraordinarily high number. Typically the teams with four or five returning starters would be ranked highest in any preseason poll. But many teams with four or five returning starters also signed some terrific players. It wouldn't surprise me to see a lot of guys who started last year coming off the bench this year. The depth of talent in this league is at an all-time high. It's a shame that we've eliminated our ninth-place finisher from the postseason tournament because the kids on that team are going to be good players who are capable of winning more than one tournament game."
 
Tuell believes NSU received its third-place ranking in the poll due largely to the fact that his Sharks return all five starters from last year's fifth-place team. "For the coaches to vote us in the top three is a heck of a complement to our returning players. If they knew the physical condition of two or three of our key players they probably would not have voted us that highly. But we'll take it and do our best to prove them right."
 
On the other hand, the NSU coach doesn't put much stock in the poll. "Until someone proves they can knock out Florida Southern, I think most of us agree that they deserve to be at least in the top two. But you could flip that poll upside down and it wouldn't surprise me one bit to see Lynn finish first, Rollins or Eckerd second or third, Saint Leo fourth. I honestly believe any one of nine teams could win this league and if you played the schedule nine different times you might have six or seven different champions. We could be the first league in collegiate history to finish with a nine-way tie for first."
 
If the bottom half of the SSC teams hope to finish anywhere near the top of the league race they will have to learn the importance of winning on the road. Florida Southern, Rollins and Eckerd have dominated the league standings in recent years, and Tuell points to their road success as the reason why. "If you look at recent history, the past six, seven or eight seasons, Florida Southern has won a league-best 60.4 percent of their conference road games (29-19 the past six years). Rollins has won 58.9 percent of their conference road games over the past seven years (33-23) and Eckerd has won 52 percent (25-23) over a six-year stretch. You can throw Saint Leo in there, too, since the arrival of Lance Randall as head coach. Over the last seven years Saint Leo is only 20-36 in league road games for a 35.7 percentage. But in three years under Coach Randall, Leo has gone 14-10 on the road for a 58.2 winning percentage. It's not hard to see why, in recent years, those teams have consistently been near the top of our league."
 
Florida Southern (42-6, 87.5 winning percentage), Rollins (38-18, 67.8 percentage) and Eckerd (29-19, 60.4 percentage) have also been among the winningest teams at home. Saint Leo is 32-24 at home (57.1 percent) over the past seven seasons, but a whopping 18-6 (75 percentage) in three seasons under Randall. Among the other SSC programs several teams have winning league records at home but have struggled to duplicate that success on the road. Florida Tech is 36-19 (65.4) in home league games the past seven years but 19-37 (33.9) on the road. NSU has posted a 34-30 (53.1 winning percentage) record the past eight seasons playing in its new arena, but 21-43 (32.8) over that same stretch on the road. Tampa is the seventh SSC member to have a winning record in recent years at home (29-27, 51.7 percent over seven seasons) but has posted a 20-36 (35.7) league road record. Over the previous seven years, Barry (27-29, 48.2 percent at home and 18-38, 32.1 percent on the road) and Lynn (20-36, 35.7 percent at home and 21-35, 37.5 percent on the road) are the only two league teams who failed to win at least half their games either at home or on the road.
 
"The best teams figure out a way to win at home and on the road, and that's why they're at the top of the league year-in and year-out," says Tuell. "Every team in this league is extremely well coached. So maybe it's as simple as this: the teams with the best players are going to win the majority of their games, regardless of whether they play at home or on the road. But when you look at the won-loss records of our league teams it's obvious that the teams who win on the road are generally the same teams in the hunt for the conference championship at the end of the year."
 
Tuell hopes NSU's five returning starters will have the experience and maturity necessary to win tough road games. But he knows that an injury to one or two key players can make a huge difference in where his team – or any other team – finishes in the conference race. "You take two significant starters off any team in this league and I guarantee you that team will not finish in the top half of the league," he says. "Injuries play a huge role in the success of every team. You could argue for Florida Southern winning the league last year despite the loss of their senior leader, Dominic Lane. But they were not the same team once Dominic went down. They were 6-0 in league games with him, 6-4 in league games without him. And while they did a nice job to win their two games in the conference tournament, they also lost at home in the first round of the NCAA tournament to a team (Tuskegee) they had beaten by 16 points earlier in the year when Dominic was playing. I thought (Tampa's) Richard Schmidt did the best coaching job in the league last year, but the fact that Linc Darner was able to hold Southern together well enough to win the regular season and postseason championships certainly made him deserving of the Coach of the Year award.
 
"It is so hard to win in this league, but you take a key player out of the lineup and it becomes nearly impossible. You take two starters out of the lineup for an extended period of time or for an entire season and you can go fishing."
 
NSU is one of the SSC's veteran squads, returning all five starters from a year ago. That's the good news. But the bad news for Shark fans is that injuries to key players have also slowed the team's progress in preseason workouts and could derail expectations for a promising season. "If everyone is healthy, this could be the best team we've had in my 11 years here," says Tuell. "Certainly this team has the potential to be very good. But we have three key players with serious back issues, and those issues are not going away. Back problems generally degenerate. They don't get better when you're running, jumping and pounding in practice. I'm not foolish enough to believe any of those guys will be healthy and 100 percent at any point this year. But I do know that practices are going to be missed in large bulk and games are going to be missed, hopefully in small quantities. Finding a way to help the team grow and get better while three of your best players are sitting out or limited in what they can do is the challenge for our coaches, our players and our medical staff. Monitoring their playing time in practices and games is a necessary but burdensome concern. Everybody wants you to win. But I'm more concerned about three kids walking upright for the rest of their lives.
 
"With five returning starters – and really six, if you count Casey Carroll (Jr., Youngstown, Ohio) as a starter, because he is – we look good on paper. But because of the physical condition of some of our guys we may be relying very heavily on new faces to play in starting roles or starter's minutes. How that impacts our chemistry will be a question only our players can answer as we move forward," the coach said.
 
The Sharks have been without Brian Cahill (Sr., Arlington, Va.), Justin Jeangerard (Sr., Weaverville, Calif.) and Casey Carroll for all or most of the team's preseason workouts. All three have back injuries that could limit them for part or most of the coming season. Freshman Nick Rosa (Coral Springs, Fla.), who lost his father, Manny, to a heart attack during the first week of classes, has also missed the entire preseason while dealing with family matters and a nagging injury.
 
"I don't know how much Brian, Justin or Casey will practice with us, much less play," says Tuell. "Obviously we'd love to say we can rely on them. Those are three pretty good players. But truthfully we can't rely on them. One day they look great, move great and play great. The next day they may not even be able to walk straight up. It is what it is. Some nights they may be able to contribute and play at a high level. Other nights they may not play at all. It's very difficult to go forward when three of your best players are holding you back, no pun intended." Cahill has had two back surgeries since committing to NSU in May of 2009. Carroll and Jeangerard have avoided surgery despite bulging discs in their backs.
 
"We discovered Casey's problem last year and it was amazing how he was able to soldier through the discomfort until he finally broke down for good in the first game of the conference tournament. Justin's problems first surfaced this summer. We have some sort of track record with Brian and Casey in terms of how much they can handle and how much we can ask from them. But we have no idea how the season will impact Justin or what he will or won't be able to handle. It's day to day with all three. Obviously it impacts us. Practices can't be as good without them. Our team cannot improve daily when they can't be on the court. Chemistry comes into play. But we can't cry about it. We'll do the best we can."
 
Additionally, Tuell said last year's MVP, Chris Page (Jr., Plainfield, Ind.), has been suspended for an indefinite number of games for violating a team rule near the end of the 2013-14 school year. "The message to everyone, and especially the young players, is that we have certain expectations and high standards and failing to meet those standards – even if you are the team MVP -- can cost you," said Tuell. "Chris is eligible, and to be honest his violation would not keep him off the court at many schools in our league or at many schools in DII. But we hold our student-athletes to very high standards, whether that's on the court, off the court or in the class room. Chris understands that. He's in study hall every day. He's in class every day. He's working hard to correct his mistake, and he has a great attitude. He's been a leader in our preseason workouts and I'm very proud of him. He's dealing with a serious family illness back home in Indiana, but he's shown amazing maturity and courage. Eventually, he'll be back and we'll be a better team when he returns."
 
NSU opens the regular season at 4:30 p.m. on Nov. 14 in a Homecoming tipoff against Johnson University. The Sharks travel to Fort Myers on Nov. 15 for a battle with NCAA DI Florida Gulf Coast at 2 p.m.