#4 seed in Pensacola

[hapapp]

If you look at that bracket and don't see whats absurd about it I just don't know how to better explain it. If you goal, as you state, is to have your best teams in the tourney, then I bring you back to my first point that you criticized. Just have your top 4 ish teams duke it out for the tourney spot. Don't even bother with the rest of the teams. So in a way, you pretty much made my point. If you want your best teams to have the easiest path to the tourney then don't bother with a week long tourney with the lower teams. Don't bother making your best teams sit for a week and lose much of their in season moment to possibly get upset by a streaky lower team who built momentum over the last week.

The season finished with a six way tie for second, who are you going to eliminate?

How many seasons has that happened? Are we going to judge a format based on a 1 in a 10,000 chance season? Thats just silly. There are plenty of forms of tie breakes used in various pro and collegiate sports that could be used starting with head to head records and even using point differentials etc. Either way, the current format is silly. If every team is going to be in the tournament then make it a normal bracketed tournament. Not this still mess. Once again, as I've had to restate multiple times, if the goal of the conference is to put what they believe is hte best possible team in the ncaa tournament then why give the lower teams a chance in the conference tournament? None of you that keep quoting me are giving an answer to this.

Because there are more than four coaches in the Sun Belt.

There being 4 coaches doesn't remotely answer any question.

It’s clear the coaches favor that format. There are more than four coaches who want to play in the tournament.

[Saint3333]

There are more than four coaches who believe they can coach their program into the top four and give themselves a better chance at the dance.

[Stonewall]

I’m not certain that the coaches support the format. Otherwise, the Sunbelt staff is lazy and basketball decisions reflect this.

[spacemonkey]

I love the format. It makes the conference season games matter. I would start the first two days with
14 and 5, 13 and 6, 12 and 7, 11 and 8, 10 and 9.

Make them work down to 4 teams then seat the 8 team weekend Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

Make the top 4 seeds matter.

[Bootsy]

Kerns has done a phenomenal job putting together teams that win, in spite of the how the odds have been stacked against him. Watching the late season fades over the past few years causes me to wonder...why?

This year’s squad has been blessed to be relatively healthy, but they’ve struggled to finish strong. Is it a function of strength, conditioning, nutrition, etc.?

App has struggled with teams they’ve faced earlier in the season. Are SBC coaches doing a better job adjusting to App than DK is doing adjusting to them?

It’s baffling, especially given the level of talent Kerns has recruited and developed (2023-24 and 2025-26 immediately come to mind). Any thoughts?

[appdaze]

The season finished with a six way tie for second, who are you going to eliminate?

How many seasons has that happened? Are we going to judge a format based on a 1 in a 10,000 chance season? Thats just silly. There are plenty of forms of tie breakes used in various pro and collegiate sports that could be used starting with head to head records and even using point differentials etc. Either way, the current format is silly. If every team is going to be in the tournament then make it a normal bracketed tournament. Not this still mess. Once again, as I've had to restate multiple times, if the goal of the conference is to put what they believe is hte best possible team in the ncaa tournament then why give the lower teams a chance in the conference tournament? None of you that keep quoting me are giving an answer to this.

Because there are more than four coaches in the Sun Belt.

There being 4 coaches doesn't remotely answer any question.

It’s clear the coaches favor that format. There are more than four coaches who want to play in the tournament.

Nah, this isn't about the coaches. As was previously stated, this was a money decision, and this format fits the money decision. As a side note. Every coach ever wants to play in the tournament. With your logic we should start march madness in January and allow every single D1 team to make it. Do you see how silly that sounds when you actually apply it? The reality is that the coaches probably had little say so in how this went down. As others have pointed out, it absolutely makes every conference game matter. It also absolutely points to the league trying to make it super duper difficult for a lower seed team to make a true post season run. Its all about the moeny. They want the best teams they can get i nthe NCAA tournament. They don't want a luck cinderella team to go in and get waxed. I can tell you about $340,000 reasons why they want a team in there that has even a microcosm of getting to the second round. Every round is worth about 2 million over 6 years to a conference. The design of this bracket shows the venue choice to save money and the deep desire to not let a major upset happen to the upper ranks. Nothing to do with coaches.

[T-Dog]

One reason this format is the way it is is that the men’s and women’s tournaments are held simultaneously. You really can’t run more than four games a day, and that high school gym was sort of embarrassing. With this format, the conference can rent one facility for a week, and everyone gets a shot, whether they’ve earned one or not.

Because of the men's and women's tournament being at the same location, under the old format, they alternated days until the semifinals. The 8/9 winner would play Thursday, get Friday off, then play the 1 seed on Saturday, just like the league did in the regular season. The MBB 1 seed went 1-3 in the quarterfinals under that format in Pensacola. The only 1 seed to win was App in 2024, and that was in OT.

And the coaches 100% choose this format.

[Saint3333]

Kerns has done a phenomenal job putting together teams that win, in spite of the how the odds have been stacked against him. Watching the late season fades over the past few years causes me to wonder...why?

This year’s squad has been blessed to be relatively healthy, but they’ve struggled to finish strong. Is it a function of strength, conditioning, nutrition, etc.?

App has struggled with teams they’ve faced earlier in the season. Are SBC coaches doing a better job adjusting to App than DK is doing adjusting to them?

It’s baffling, especially given the level of talent Kerns has recruited and developed (2023-24 and 2025-26 immediately come to mind). Any thoughts?

Depth. We don't have the luxury of developing players and I believe this hurts our rotation in conference games. Minute management is a big part of the NBA and in college if you only have 7-8 players capable of playing at a "conference game" level late February is hard.

[AtlAppMan]

Kerns has done a phenomenal job putting together teams that win, in spite of the how the odds have been stacked against him. Watching the late season fades over the past few years causes me to wonder...why?

This year’s squad has been blessed to be relatively healthy, but they’ve struggled to finish strong. Is it a function of strength, conditioning, nutrition, etc.?

App has struggled with teams they’ve faced earlier in the season. Are SBC coaches doing a better job adjusting to App than DK is doing adjusting to them?

It’s baffling, especially given the level of talent Kerns has recruited and developed (2023-24 and 2025-26 immediately come to mind). Any thoughts?

Depth. We don't have the luxury of developing players and I believe this hurts our rotation in conference games. Minute management is a big part of the NBA and in college if you only have 7-8 players capable of playing at a "conference game" level late February is hard.

So most of our conference opponents have depth and we don't? Not disagreeing but this is the same trend every year.

But I would also tend to add that we always have same issues with FTs.

[Saint3333]

Consistently our opponents are playing 8-9 players 10+ minutes each game where we play 6-7 players 10+ minutes a game. That matters in February.

[spacemonkey]

Good or bad....we live or die by the 3.

[BambooRdApp]

Wilson named SBC D Player of the year.
Congratulations Luke!!!

[BambooRdApp]

Jennings 2nd team SBC

[t4pizza]

Wilson named SBC D Player of the year.
Congratulations Luke!!!

Wonder how much that will earn him on the open market? My guess is a pretty nice sum that we will not be able to match.

[hapapp]

Jennings 2nd team SBC

Dodd 3rd team SBC

[AtlAppMan]

Consistently our opponents are playing 8-9 players 10+ minutes each game where we play 6-7 players 10+ minutes a game. That matters in February.

Agree with your point but my point is it is Kerns responsibility to solve and he can't say his peers aren't solving the problem. This is not a new problem that he owns.

[Saint3333]

Did I say it wasn’t his responsibility?

[spacemonkey]

Best outcome for Sunbelt is probably Troy. (Of course I want APP)

Troy 3 and 1 in quad 1 and 2.
App 1 and 1 against quad 1 and 2.
Coastal 2 and 2 against quad 1 and 2.

Every other Sunbelt rep "0 for" against quad 1 and 2.

Everyone a Sunbelt rep will play in NCAA tournament will be a quad 1.

My two cents...I do think Troy and App have the defenses to have a chance if either would get hot from 3. I don't think anyone else in the Sunbelt can keep a quad 1 team under 90 points. Marshall will give up 110 points to most quad 1 teams.

[BUTCH1991]

LaLa & ODU with opening round wins. Bye bye to GaSt & ULM.

[agentpaul001]

ESPN has all three "analysts" projecting Arkansas St pulling out a win. I don't disagree they ended the season strong but I'd be shocked if they ran five straight.

Other then the Akron win (which tbf was solid) Troy hasn't won against a good opponent since late January. This feels quite a bit like the 21' season in terms of the bench. Looking now we were arguably more thin although we had a bit more depth at guard but short a couple bigs. (Wild looking at some of the young guys on the bench lol!).