After the Sun Belt Presidents and Chancellors meeting in Atlanta, the conference announced a strategic men’s basketball plan.
The plan involves changes to non-conference and conference scheduling, postseason conference tournament format, and the location of the conference tournament.
“The conference is positioned for and has an established history of success, and our membership recognizes that new ideas are often needed to rise to new levels of success,” said Sun Belt Conference and Georgia State University President Dr. Mark Becker in a statement. “The initiatives passed today demonstrate the commitment we have to pushing ourselves to the pinnacle of intercollegiate athletics.”
In a statement, the conference detailed the following plan.
Non-conference scheduling alliance
The conference announced a men’s basketball non-conference scheduling alliance. Teams will reserve two dates in its non-conference schedule to play against peer conference opponents. Each team will have one home opponent and one away opponent from the new scheduling alliance. The alliance will fully begin during the 2019-2020 season.
A 20-game smart schedule
The Sun Belt also announced the “20-game smart schedule,” a scheduling format splitting the conference into two divisions.
East: Appalachian State, Coastal Carolina, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, South Alabama, and Troy
West: Little Rock, Arkansas State, Louisiana, ULM, UTA, and Texas State
Under this new scheduling plan, each team will play a 16-game schedule with five home and five away games played against divisional opponents plus three home and three away games against non-divisional opponents.
Based on the standings after finishing the 16 games, teams will be split into 4 “pods,” and each pod will have three teams. The higher the conference ranking, the better “pod” group. Each team will play the other two pod members once home and once away for the final four games of the 20-game schedule.
Regular season conference champion will be awarded based on the full 20-game schedule.
Sun Belt men’s basketball tournament seeding
Beginning in 2020, Sun Belt teams will be seeded for the conference tournament based on results within its pod range. For example, Pod A teams (#1, #2, #3 teams) would not be seeded any lower than the No. 3 seed in the Sun Belt Conference men's basketball tournament.
However, it is possible that the Sun Belt Conference Champion would not be the No. 1 seeded team, meaning the conference champion did not have the best record within its pod.
Location of conference tournament
Both the men’s and women’s basketball semifinal rounds and both championship games will now be played at the New Orleans Smoothie King Center.
Ten total teams will be selected for each the men’s and women’s tournament.
The bracket format with locations can be seen below.
2020 Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournament
Saturday, March 7, 2020
Game 1 - No. 10 Seed at No. 7 Seed (Campus Site)
Game 2 - No. 9 Seed at No. 8 Seed (Campus Site)
Monday, March 9, 2020
Game 3 – Game 1 Winner at No. 6 Seed (Campus Site)
Game 4 – Game 2 Winner at No. 5 Seed (Campus Site)
Wednesday, March 11, 2020
Game 5 – Game 3 Winner at No. 3 Seed (Campus Site)
Game 6 – Game 4 Winner at No. 4 Seed (Campus Site)
Saturday, March 14, 2020
Game 7 – Game 5 Winner vs. No. 2 Seed (Smoothie King Center)
Game 8 – Game 6 Winner vs. No. 1 Seed (Smoothie King Center)
Sunday, March 15, 2020
Championship Game (Smoothie King Center)
2019 Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournament Schedules Updates
The No. 1 and No. 2 seeds in the 2019 men’s and women’s basketball tournaments will receive byes to the semifinals, while the No. 3 and No. 4 seeds will receive byes to the quarterfinals. The tournament will also host 10 teams, but only eight will make it to New Orleans’ Lakefront Arena.
Two opening rounds game will be played on campus sites –– the No. 7 seed hosts No. 10 seed, and the No. 8 seed hosts the No. 9 seed.
The Sun Belt Conference released the new plans and more updates on its website.
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