Get To Know a College Basketball Mid-Major: Sun Belt Conference

You know all about the Power 6 conferences in college basketball. You hear about those more than any other, and those groups often dominate the March Madness conversation. There are 31 other conferences out there, however, and our goal is to get you up to speed on the teams, players and fights in the standings to know before the conference tournaments, Selection Sunday and the official start of March Madness. It’s time for you to get to know a mid-major: this time, it’s the Sun Belt. The Sun Belt is a 14-member conference, and you can probably guess from the name where most of its teams reside: as southwest as Texas, and only as northeast as the Virginias, across the southeastern states in an unbroken band. It has held Division I status since 1976, and starting with the 2022-2023 basketball season the conference tournament has included all 14 of its schools. (In 2026, Texas State University will leave for the Pac-12, but remains in the Sun Belt this basketball season for an even 14.) The top four seeds make it to the quarterfinals automatically in both the men’s and women’s tournaments, while seeds 5 to 10 get a bye to the second round. The bottom four in the standings all make the tournament, yes, but it’s basically a play-in round because of the stepladder structure. Sun Belt — Men’s College Basketball Leaders: No one has emerged as the clear favorite at the top of the Sun Belt on the men’s side just yet. Troy was 8-1, but lost two in a row during 3- and 4-game winning streaks for the second- and third-place teams, South Alabama (7-3) and App State (8-4). Marshall is currently the last of the teams holding onto one of the two-round byes, at 6-4. Behind the Thundering Herd — and very close to them — is Coastal Carolina (7-5), Georgia Southern (6-5), Georgia State (6-5), Texas State (6-6), Southern Miss (6-6) and then both Arkansas State and Louisiana-Lafayette are tied for 10th — the final single-round bye —  at 5-6. Whichever of those two ends up with the worse record or on the wrong end of a tiebreaker will play a first-round game in the Sun Belt conference tournament, and, as of now, James Madison (4-7), Old Dominion (4-7) and winless Louisiana Monroe (0-11) would join them. One issue with sorting out just who is best is that the conference is full of teams that are not otherwise going to be anywhere near the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. In each of the last three years, only the conference tournament champion has gained entry with an automatic bid, and that won’t change in 2026. Marshall is the top-ranked team by the NCAA Evaluation Tool’s accounting through Feb. 3, at 135th. Troy is next in NET, at 138th, then it’s Arkansas State at 173rd — the same Arkansas State that might be forced to play a first-round game if it doesn’t turn things around in conference play. Both South Alabama and App State are top-200 teams, as well. Troy, at least, has junior forward Thomas Dowd to maybe help it over the line. Dowd leads the conference in rebounds with 10.3 per game, but he’s also averaging a double-double overall thanks to 14.9 points. The 6-foot-8 Trojan is also third on the team in assists per game, at 2.1. Dowd is one of five players averaging at least 10.2 points per game for Troy, with junior forward Victor Valdes leading the squad at an even 16 a night. Still, Marshall presents a problem for the conference despite its 6-4 record. Its offense moves the ball around well, ranking 44th in assists per game in all of Division I, and it’s a top-50 team in rebounds, as well. By KenPom’s Offensive and Defensive Ratings, Troy has a slight advantage on the offensive side with the two practically equal defensively. Marshall has to be sure not to fall out of the top-four in order to take advantage of this closeness in ability level in the tourney, though, as having to play more games in more days creates a disadvantage the Trojans don’t need to worry about unless their losing streak gets a lot longer. Sun Belt — Women’s College Basketball Leaders: Things are far more competitive as far as national relevance goes on the women’s side of the Sun Belt. James Madison (8-4, 5th in the Sun Belt) is 54th in NET. Troy (9-2, 3rd) is 64th. Georgia Southern (9-2, 2nd) is 75th in NET, while first-place Arkansas State (10-1) is 84th. Marshall (9-3, 4th) rounds out the top-100 teams from the Sun Belt at 95th, but you don’t have to go much further for the next one: Coastal Carolina (4-7, 10th) is 120th, and Old Dominion (5-6, 8th) is 142nd. Despite this higher level of competitiveness, the Sun Belt has had only the automatic bid for the conference champ on the women’s side in each of the last three NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournaments, as well. Maybe that will change in 2026, since James Madison, Troy and Georgia Southern are all in the top 75 right now, and the tournament admits 68 teams. Still, the surest way to gain entry to March Madness is by winning the Sun Belt championship, which the mess of teams above are all in position to do in a hotly contested conference. James Madison has the best offense of the bunch per Offensive Rating, at 101.75 points per 100 possessions, 66th in the country, but Georgia Southern (73rd) and Troy (77th) aren’t far behind. James Madison’s defense is even better: it ranks 44th, and no one else in the conference is close, with Arkansas State and Troy coming in at 70th and 76th, respectively. The Dukes are the most balanced team in the conference, then, but Troy leads the nation — not just the conference — in rebounds per game, at 50.5, thanks to a pair of senior forwards, Fortuna Ngnawo and Zay Dyer, who are averaging 10 and 12.1 rebounds per game, respectively — the two are also averaging a double-double per night as the team’s leading scorers, and three more Trojans besides average at least 10.4 points per game. Only James Madison comes anywhere close in rebounding, at 42 per, 24th-best in D-I — as the two don’t play each other this year, this one is a fight that might come down to the conference tourney.