College Basketball: Third year in Pensacola shaping well for Sun Belt Conference tournaments
In its third year of staging the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments in Pensacola, the Sun Belt Conference believes this will be the charmed one.
New teams. Bigger brands. An expanded field. A new format. An extra day of play when the event begins on Tuesday with four games.
And this year, without concerns relating to the coronavirus pandemic.
“One of the highlights of my (4-year) tenure is bringing our basketball tournament championships to Pensacola,” said Sun Belt commissioner Keith Gill, an Orlando native, Duke University graduate.
“It was the start of a fabulous relationship and one that continues to grow,” Gill said. “Everyone is getting to know each other. One of the things we said is that we want to be here for the long haul. And each year we want to build it and that is what I feel like we’ve done.
“When I drove into town, I saw the flags, the banners so having such a presence here is huge for us. Pensacola has really embraced it and we are excited to get back this year.”
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This is the mid-point of the league’s five-year agreement with Escambia County to have the men’s and women’s tournament at the Pensacola Bay Center.
Timing is working in the league’s favor. Southern Mississippi, one of four new schools to the league this year, won the men’s regular-season title and shared first place on the women’s basketball side. The other three new league members playing in Pensacola will be Marshall, James Madison and Old Dominion.
The four schools give the league 14 members. Two previous Sun Belt schools, Texas Arlington (Western Athletic Conference) and Arkansas-Little Rock (Ohio Valley Conference) aligned with new conferences to begin the 2022-2023 athletic year, as part of massive shakeup throughout Division I athletics.
The Sun Belt’s four additions provide established D-1 programs to give the league a bigger reach.
“We feel like we’re in a really good place,” said Gill, who was guest speaker at the 69th annual Pensacola Sports Awards Banquet on Feb. 22. “We got better across the board. We got better in all sports. We feel like we are well positioned to weather any storms that come our way and excited about the schools we have.
“Our new schools bring a lot of excitement and engagement to Pensacola.”
For the Golden Eagles, who were 1-17 a year ago in Conference-USA, it was their first men’s conference title in 22 years. Their 25-6 overall record is the most since Southern Miss became a Division I member and second-most in the team’s 70-year history of men’s basketball.
Southern Miss also attracted its first sellout crowd (8,097) in five years when beating the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns on Feb. 10 to move into first place in SBC standings.
“Our basketball fan base has been so hungry,” said USM coach Jay Ladner, speaking to media following the game that night. “We struggled the last couple of years. To go from where we are from the start of the season when there probably were just a few hundred people in the stands…. a great spirit is there and our players are feeding off that.”
Southern Miss received Top 25 votes in last week’s Associated Press men’s college basketball poll. Under the revamped, 14-team format, the Golden Eagles receive a bye into the quarterfinal round on Saturday, which could be a big attendance day at the Bay Center.
Also receiving byes as Top 4 league finishers were fellow newcomers Marshall and James Madison, along with the established Sun Belt member Ragin’ Cajuns, who have brought a sizeable group of fans in the first two years at the Bay Center.
On the women’s side, James Madison earned the tournament’s top seed, followed by No. 2 Texas State, then Southern Miss and No. 4 seed Troy, coached by former Pensacola State College women’s coach Chanda Rigby, who led Troy to the Sun Belt Tournament title in 2021.
The women’s quarterfinals will be Friday. On Sunday (March 5), the women’s semifinals will start at 11:30 a.m. followed by the men’s semifinals at 5 p.m. The women’s and men’s championship games are March 6 and both televised on ESPN outlets.
“Ticket sales are exceeding all past years in a significant way,” said Ray Palmer, executive director of Pensacola Sports, which worked in tandem with the county to bring the Sun Belt tournaments to the community. “But I think it is a matter of learning how people work together.
“The Sun Belt Conference staff has been fantastic, the Bay Center, and all our partners are kind of learning their role on how we can maximize the exposure. The community is talking about it. I go places and now get asked about it all the time. It’s all good stuff.”
One of the takeaways from the first two years was something no one could control.
“Stay away from Covid,” said Palmer, when asked what he learned most. “But really, I think like anything you do in multiple years, you get a chance every year to tweak it a little bit.
“The conference has learned a lot of things about what our community is about. We have learned that our community is really starving for a big event like this.”
The Sun Belt has set itself apart by staging both men’s and women’s tournaments at the same arena in the same week and with all of the league members participating. It was something Gill advocated when the tournament left its previous location in New Orleans.
“We think it is great,” said Gill, who became the first African-American commissioner of a major NCAA D-1 conference when appointed in March 2019. “Every Sun Belt basketball player, men’s and women’s will get a championship experience in a great town like Pensacola. Running the tournament all in the same place makes it all equitable.
Both men’s and women’s teams get the same experience. Then it is exciting to be here at the beach around spring break. Our athletes like coming here. The Gulf Coast is where people throughout our conference take vacations, so it really is a perfect footprint for us.”
WANT TO GO?
WHAT: Sun Belt Conference Men’s, Women’s Basketball Tournaments
WHEN: Tuesday through March 6
WHERE: Pensacola Bay Center
WHO: 14 teams on each side. (Appalachian State, Arkansas State, Coastal Carolina, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, James Madison, Louisiana, Louisiana-Monroe, Marshall, Old Dominion, South Alabama, Southern Mississippi, Texas State, Troy University).
TOP SEEDS: Southern Miss (men), James Madison (women).
SCHEDULE: Four games on Tuesday featuring the bottom tier finishers on each side, the women’s quarterfinal round is Friday with four games starting at 11:30 a.m. and the men’s quarterfinals are Saturday beginning at 11:30 a.m. Men’s and women’s semifinals are March 5, the championship games are March 6 (women at 1 p.m., men’s game at 6 p.m.)
WATCHING: The tournament is available live stream on ESPN-Plus. The women’s final is on ESPN-U; the men’s final is on ESPN2.
TICKETS: Entire tournament ticket packages (all games) range from $23 to $143. Single-game/session admission tickets range from $10.50 to $73.00 (courtside).
INFO: www.sunbeltsports.org/championships.
Bill Vilona is a retired Pensacola News Journal sports columnist and now senior writer for Pensacola Blue Wahoos. He can be reached at bvilona@bluewahoos.com.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: College Basketball: Sun Belt Conference tournaments kick off Tuesday
