Sun Belt Conference Men's Basketball Tournament

Sun Belt Conference Men's Basketball Tournament
Conference Basketball Championship
2015 Sun Belt Tournament Logo
Sport	College basketball
Conference	Sun Belt Conference
Number of teams	13
Format	Single-elimination tournament
Current stadium	Lakefront Arena
Current location	New Orleans, LA
Played	1977–present
Last contest	2016
Current champion	Little Rock
Most championships	Western Kentucky (9)
TV partner(s)	ESPN2
Official website	SunBeltSports.org Men's Basketball
Host stadiums
Charlotte Coliseum Jacksonville Memorial Coliseum Birmingham Jefferson Convention Complex Hampton Coliseum E.A. Diddle Arena Richmond Coliseum Mobile Civic Center Mississippi Coast Coliseum Barton Coliseum Cajundome Mitchell Center Alltel Arena Lakefront Arena UNT Coliseum Murphy Center Summit Arena
Host locations
Charlotte, NC (1977-1980, 1989) Jacksonville, FL (1981) Birmingham, AL (1982-1984,1986,1990) Hampton, VA (1985) Bowling Green, KY (1987, 1994, 2003-2004) Richmond, VA (1988) Mobile, AL (1991, 2001, 2008) Biloxi, MS (1992-1993) Little Rock, AR (1995-1997) Lafayette, LA (1998-1999, 2007) North Little Rock, AR (2000) New Orleans, LA (2002, 2014-present) Denton, TX (2005) Murfreesboro, TN (2006) Hot Springs, AR (2009-2013)

The Sun Belt Conference Men's Basketball Tournament has been played every year since the formation of the Sun Belt Conference for the 1976–77 academic year.

The winner of the tournament is guaranteed an automatic berth into the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship.

The size and format of the Sun Belt tournament has varied widely since its establishment in 1976. The size of the conference has ranged between a minimum of six teams and as many as thirteen.

Nonetheless, the tournament has consistently utilized a simple single-elimination style tournament. With a few exceptions, all conference members are typically invited to each tournament. Depending on the total number of teams in the league during a particular year, higher-seeded teams have sometimes received byes into the quarterfinal or semifinal rounds. Teams have always been seeded based on regular season conference records, although some modifications were made when the league was split into divisions during the 2000s.

With some exceptions, the tournament has historically been played at the home gym of one of the conference's members (e.g. Louisiana–Lafayette's Cajundome, North Texas' UNT Coliseum) or at a major arena in a nearby city (e.g. Mobile Civic Center near South Alabama).

Some of the more common host venues have included the Charlotte Coliseum in Charlotte, North Carolina (Charlotte), the Birmingham Jefferson Convention Complex in Birmingham, Alabama (UAB), Barton Coliseum in Little Rock, Arkansas (Little Rock), and E.A. Diddle Arena in Bowling Green, Kentucky (Western Kentucky).

However, the tournament has been hosted at a neutral arena site each year since 2009 (Hot Springs, Arkansas and New Orleans, Louisiana). Lakefront Arena in New Orleans had previously hosted the event in 2002 when UNO was still a Sun Belt member but the Privateers have since departed the conference. The only other neutral sites to host a Sun Belt tournament were the Hampton Coliseum in Hampton, Virginia (1985) and the Mississippi Coast Coliseum in Biloxi, Mississippi (1992–1993).