Sun Belt Sports Fans

(5W) Arkansas-Little Rock 64, (4W) North Texas 63
Hot Springs, Arkansas, the site of the Sun Belt Conference tournament, continued to be the epicenter of March Madness, as senior guard Solomon Bozeman drilled the game-winning three-pointer with a 1.5 seconds remaining, lifting the fifth-seeded Arkansas-Little Rock Trojans (19-16) past the North Texas Mean Green (22-11) and into the NCAA basketball tournament.  Bozeman, who was both the Sun Belt Player of the Year and the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player, scored a game-high 20 points, but none bigger than the game-winning three that …

(5W) Arkansas-Little Rock 65, (2E) Middle Tennessee State 56
So, if you had Arkansas-Little Rock and North Texas in the Sun Belt Tournament final in your Championship Week bracket picks, raise your hand… and collect your lottery winnings when you guess the right Powerball numbers later this week. After all, if you were able to figure out this tournament before it began, you should be able to unseat Nostradamus as the greatest prognosticator on earth.
Yes, as everyone most certainly did NOT expect when this year’s Sun Belt shindig began this past …

(W4) North Texas 81, (E3) Western Kentucky 62
So, it would appear that the kids from North Texas just don’t want to let go of their place of prominence in the Sun Belt Conference.
Tristan Thompson continued to make his case for being named the Sun Belt Conference tournament’s Most Valuable Player, scoring 28 points to lead the North Texas Mean Green to victory over the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers and into the Sun Belt championship game for the second consecutive season.
Last year, when North Texas took the Sun Belt Tournament title and …

March Madness came to Hot Springs, Arkansas, on Sunday. The top two seeds, Florida Atlantic and Arkansas State, were both upended, as was the league’s hottest team, Louisiana-Lafayette, which had won ten straight games heading into Sunday’s Sun Belt quarterfinal clash with Western Kentucky.  Of the top four seeds, only Middle Tennessee State, the East Division’s two-seed, survived.
(W4) North Texas 78, (E1) Florida Atlantic 64
The North Texas Mean Green (21-10) outscored top-seeded Florida Atlantic 51-30 in the second half to overcome a 34-27 halftime deficit and defeat the Owls (21-10) …

Hot Springs, AR
If you like March Madness and the insanity of conference tournaments, the Sun Belt Conference is the center of your heart’s desire, your every wish for bracket-busting excitement. The carnage was total on Sunday evening in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Two arenas are used in the setup for the opening two rounds of this tournament, and they both witnessed wacky action that took down three of the four highest-seeded teams in the league. Of the four teams in the Sun Belt that earned first-round byes for this event, only …

Hot Springs, AR
Two Venues – Summit Arena and the Hot Springs Convention Center
Seeds with “W” and “E” refer to the West and East Divisions of the conference
W4 = fourth seed in the West Division; 3E = third seed in the East Division

Game 1: (W4) North Texas 83, (E5) Troy 69
The North Texas Mean Green used a 19-4 second half run to turn a close 57-56 game into a rout, defeating the Troy Trojans to earn a spot in the Sun Belt tournament quarterfinals.  Senior guard Dominique Johnson led a …

The 2011 Sun Belt Conference men’s basketball championship tournament commences with the opening round on Saturday, March 5 and culminates with the championship game on Tuesday March 8, which tips-off at 7:00 PM EST and will be televised live on ESPN2. The tournament is being played in Hot Springs, Arkansas at two different venues; Summit Arena and the Hot Springs Convention Center. The semifinals and championship game will be played at Summit Arena with the tournament winner heading to the 2011 NCAA Tournament.
The top two finishers during the regular season …

(2) North Texas 63, (6) Denver 56
It wasn’t very hard to identify the dominant theme of Semifinal Monday at the 2010 Sun Belt Conference Tournament in Hot Springs, Ark. The team that defends better for a longer period of time will win, especially if it can lock down the opposition in a game’s most meaningful minutes.
In the night’s first semifinal at Summit Arena, top-seeded Troy overcame extended periods of offensive ineptitude and advanced to the Sun Belt final by shutting out Western Kentucky in the game’s final four minutes and …

(1) Troy 54, (4) Western Kentucky 48
Baskets came at a premium Monday night in the Sun Belt Conference Tournament‘s semifinal round. Fortunately for the Troy Trojans, the team with the last drought lost.
It has to be really weird for a basketball club to score 16 points in the second half and win, but that’s exactly the scenario that greeted the regular-season champion of the Sun Belt. Coach Don Maestri has seen a lot of basketball in his 28 years as Troy’s head coach, so while the quality of play at …