The Sun Belt revealed a new format for its conference basketball tournaments on Thursday that will reward regular season performance in a major way. The league’s top two teams will receive byes to the semifinals of what will now be a seven-round tournament.
Meanwhile, teams seeded No. 11-14 will be required to win seven games in seven days if they are going to claim the Sun Belt’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
“The new Sun Belt Basketball Championship brackets will reward our top seeds for their accomplishments during the regular season, ensuring they receive the advantage they’ve earned for their on-court performance,” Sun Belt Conference Commissioner Keith Gill said in the league’s announcement of the new format.
Previously, the top four seeds in the bracket received byes into the quarterfinals and had to win three games to win the conference tournament. In that format, seeds No. 11-14 had to win five games.
Arkansas State was picked to win the Sun Belt in the conference’s preseason coaches poll, receiving 12 of 14 first-place votes, while James Madison and Troy received one first-place vote apiece. Coastal Carolina and ULM were picked to finish 13th and 14th, respectively.
While the visual of a seven-round conference tournament with multiple byes for the top two teams is jarring, the concept of offering multiple byes to high-performing schools is not unprecedented in college basketball. In the WCC, for example, the top two teams have been afforded byes into the semifinals in recent years while the two poorest-seeded teams were tasked with winning five games in five days.
