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Sun Belt Men's Basketball Tournament

Sun Belt Conference Men's Basketball Tournament
Conference Basketball Championship
2015 SunBelt BBall Logo.png
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).


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