LITTLE ROCK – The Sun Belt Conference has announced major changes to its men's basketball scheduling plan over the next two seasons, as well as alterations to the men's and women's basketball tournament format beginning in 2018-19. These changes come at the conclusion of the Sun Belt Presidents and Chancellors meeting Monday in Atlanta.
Complete Sun Belt Conference Release
2018-19 Season: Men's and Women's Mirror Scheduling
The first of those changes take place in the 2018-19 season when the league will institute a mirror scheduling format, following an 18-game schedule. Both genders of a program will face both genders of another program on the same date, but at opposite venues. For example, in a given weekend, the Trojan women's team would host Texas State and UT Arlington at the Jack Stephens Center, while the Trojan men will be on the road in San Marcos and Arlington those corresponding nights.
Another significant change will come in regards to the 2019 Sun Belt Men's and Women's Basketball Championships, returning once again to New Orleans' Lakefront Arena. The top 10 teams will qualify for the tournament, but only eight will make the trip to New Orleans.
For both the men's and women's tournaments, two opening round games will be played on campus sites with the number seven seed hosting the number 10 seed and the number eight seed hosting the number nine seed. The number one and two seeds will receive byes to the semifinals while the number three and four seeds will receive byes to the quarterfinals.
2019-20 Men's Conference Schedule
For the 2019-20 Sun Belt Conference men's basketball schedule, the league has adopted a scheduling format similar to the one announced by Conference USA last week, dubbed the "20-game smart schedule." The conference will be split into an East and West Division, mirroring the format already in place for the conference baseball and volleyball seasons, as Little Rock will be positioned in the West Division with Arkansas State, Louisiana, ULM, Texas State and UT Arlington.
Each team will play a 16-game schedule, comprised of five home-and-home games against their divisional counterparts (10 total games) with three home and three away games against non-divisional opponents (six total games). Based on the results standings of those 16 games, teams will then be placed into pods – Pod A (#1, #2, #3), Pod B (#4, #5, #6), Pod C (#7, #8, #9) and Pod D (#10, #11, #12).
The final four games of the conference schedule will then see each team play the other two pod members, once at home and once away, completing the 20-game schedule. The regular season champion will be awarded based on the results of the full 20-game conference schedule.
The Trojan women will continue to play an 18-game conference schedule, similar to the current league format.
2019-20 Men's and Women's Conference Tournament
At the completion of the regular season, teams will be seeded for the conference tournament based on the results within their pod range. For example, a team in Pod A (#1, #2, #3) cannot be seeded any lower than the number three seed.
Both the men's and women's championship will see 10 total teams selected for the tournament with the majority of tournament games being played at campus sites before the final four being hosted at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans.
Similar to the 2018-19 format the opening round of the tournament begins with the number seven seed hosting the number 10 seed and the number eight seed hosting the number nine seed at campus sites. Round two will feature the opening round winners at the home venues of the number five and six seeds, followed by the quarterfinals being played at the home venues of the number three and four seeds. The top two seeds following the conclusion of the regular season earn an automatic bid into the semifinals at the Smoothie King Center.
2019-20 Men's Non-Conference Scheduling Alliance
As a first step for improving non-conference scheduling, Sun Belt men's basketball teams will reserve two dates in the non-conference portion of its schedule to play against peer conference opponents. Each team will have one home and one away opponent from the scheduling alliance, aimed at strengthening the league's RPI.
Little Rock's full men's and women's schedules will be released in the coming weeks as both programs are turning their sights toward the 2018-19 season. For the women, head coach
Joe Foley and his Trojans will be seeking to defend their Sun Belt Conference title while on the men's side, head coach
Darrell Walker makes his debut on the Trojan sideline.
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