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Cinderella stories are one of the best things about the college basketball postseason. Seeing that under-the-radar team make a deep run in March gets everyone excited for absolute chaos.
Many of those runs begin in the conference tournaments where teams compete for automatic bids to the Big Dance. One particular league is looking to prevent upsets ahead of March Madness!
The Sun Belt is moving to a bizarre new format for the 2024-25 conference championship season. The top two seeds are on bye until the semifinals!
They only have to win one game to advance to the finals while matching up against a foe that’s already played at least one contest prior.
The Sun Belt has the greatest conference tournament bracket ever created.
Seven rounds.
No ragrets. pic.twitter.com/J9moeiUFR2
— The Field of 68 (@TheFieldOf68) October 31, 2024
The league released a statement on the bracket changes Thursday:
The Sun Belt Conference announced changes to its men’s and women’s basketball tournament brackets on Thursday, which will go into effect for the 2024-25 season.
While the league will continue to take all 14 members to the Sun Belt Men’s and Women’s Basketball Championships and will maintain its seven-day tournament format, rest days will be eliminated from the postseason events.
In an effort to prioritize the value of the 18-game conference regular-season, the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds will now receive byes to the tournament semifinals. The No. 3 and No. 4 seeds will maintain byes to the tournament quarterfinals, which had previously been given to the top four seeds.
“The new Sun Belt Basketball Championship brackets will reward our top seeds for their accomplishments during the regular season, ensuring they receive the advantage they’ve earned for their on-court performance,” said Sun Belt Conference Commissioner Keith Gill.
The move almost ensures that the top seeds earn auto bids to the NCAA Tournament. The regular season will matter that much more!
It’s an interesting adjustment given the results of the last two men’s league championships.
In each case, the No. 1 seed has been beaten before the finals, allowing lower seeds to advance to the title game. The No. 2 seed landed the March Madness bid in both seasons. The top seeds were sent to the NIT!
While Cinderellas could be far and few between in the Sun Belt conference race, the changes give the No. 1 seed a better shot at making noise in the Big Dance.
And that should make for a better product in postseason play as leagues always want their top performers representing them on college basketball’s biggest stage.
Year 1 of the format will be interesting to watch. We’ll see if other one-bid leagues follow suit!