The Sun Belt conference basketball tournament starts up Wednesday at Lakefront Arena in New Orleans. 12 teams will vie for the conference’s lone automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, an honor Arkansas-Little Rock earned a year ago.
Sun Belt basketball tournament 2017: Bracket, schedule, and scores
The #FunBelt title went to Troy after a wild tournament that saw favorite UT Arlington go down in the semifinals.
Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY Sports
The Trojans are playing nowhere near the form that was on display during last year’s tournament season, when they won 30 games — including 17 conference wins — en route to a regular season and conference title. That earned them a date with No. 5 Purdue in the Big Dance’s first round, where they went and upset the Big Ten club, 85-83, with the help of an 18-5 run in the game’s closing minutes. It doesn’t get more #FunBelt than that.
Texas-Arlington locked up the conference tournament’s No. 1 seed earlier last month with a win over Louisiana-Monroe, and the Mavericks had eight straight wins before falling to Louisiana-Lafayette in the regular season finale. Arlington has wins over St. Mary’s and Texas this year, and if they won the conference tournament, that could’ve be enough to hop up to a No. 14 or even 13 line on the eventual bracket.
However, things went sideways in the semifinal. UT Arlington got routed by Texas State, all but ensuring that it will play in the NIT. The title went to the sixth-seeded Troy, making its first NCAA tournament appearance in 14 years.
The format
All 12 Sun Belt teams will make the trek to New Orleans for the conference tournament, with the top four seeds earning bids into the quarterfinal round. Every team is eligible for postseason play, but just one will punch a ticket through to the 2017 Big Dance.
The teams
- Texas-Arlington
- Georgia State
- Georgia Southern
- Texas State
- Arkansas State
- Troy
- Louisiana-Lafayette
- Coastal Carolina
- South Alabama
- Arkansas-Little Rock
- Appalachian State
- Louisiana-Monroe
The bracket
Schedule and Results (All times Eastern)
Wednesday, March 8 (First Round)
Game 1: No. 8 Coastal Carolina 80, No. 9 South Alabama 67
Game 2: No. 12 Louisiana-Monroe 73, No. 5 Arkansas State 70 (OT)
Game 3: No. 7 Louisiana-Lafayette 78, No. 10 Arkansas-Little Rock 71
Game 4: No. 6 Troy 84, No. 11 Appalachian State 64
Friday, March 10 (Quarterfinals)
Game 5: No. 1 UT Arlington 74, No. 8 Coastal Carolina 51
Game 6: No. 4 Texas State 63, No. 12 Louisiana-Monroe 51
Game 7: No. 2 Georgia State 86, No. 7 Louisiana-Lafayette 76
Game 8: No. 6 Troy 90, No. 3 Georgia Southern 70
Saturday, March 11 (Semifinals)
Game 9: No. 4 Texas State 83, No. 1 UT Arlington 62
Game 10: No. 6 Troy 74, No. 2 Georgia State 63
Sunday, March 12 (Finals)
Game 11: No. 6 Troy, 59, No. 4 Texas State 53
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