2018-19 Sun Belt Men's Basketball Weekly News and Notes:
Week 15 Release (PDF) | Standings | Composite Schedule | Stats | Championship | Media Guide

AROUND #SUNBELTMBB
• This week’s Sun Belt men’s basketball schedule features all 10 games on the ESPN family of networks. The conference is back in the national spotlight on Friday, Feb. 15 with Troy at Georgia Southern on ESPN2. Ted Emrich and Mark Wise are set to be on the call from Hanner Fieldhouse in Statesboro, Ga. ESPN+ has live coverage of the week’s remaining nine matchups.

• Only two games in the loss column separate the Sun Belt’s top six teams. Texas State and UTA share the top spot with identical 8-3 records with Georgia State one game back at 7-4. UTA, picked 11th in the Sun Belt preseason poll, has won eight of its last nine games to maintain its spot in the top half of the standings. The Mavericks have held a top 10 scorer in the conference below his season average in all 11 league games so far. Texas State enters the week one victory shy of its 20th of the season. With their next win, the Bobcats would reach the 20-win plateau for the second time in three seasons. Georgia State looks to remain in position to finish in the top two in the regular-season standings for the fifth time in six seasons. The Panthers are 15-0 this season when leading at the half, which is among the nation’s top 5 most wins at the half without a loss. Sitting behind the top three are the trio of Georgia Southern, ULM and Coastal Carolina, each at 6-5, and Louisiana and South Alabama, each at 5-6, as the schedule moves into the stretch run of conference play.

• Conference play is featuring a number of close contests for Sun Belt men's basketball. Of the 66 league games played so far, 34 have been decided by six points or less.

• Georgia Southern’s brother-sister duo of senior guard Tookie and junior guard Alexis Brown are lighting it up for the Eagles this season. The top scoring siblings in NCAA Division I, Tookie (17.7 points per game) and Alexis (17.5 points per game) are leading their respective teams in scoring. For their careers, the Browns have scored nearly 3,000 points - 2,142 for Tookie and 813 for Alexis. Both wear No. 4 jerseys and are majoring in sport management. Tookie became just the eighth player in Sun Belt men’s basketball history to eclipse 2,000 career points when he surpassed the milestone on a three-pointer from the top of the key at the 18:14 mark in the first half at Troy on Jan. 17. He enters the week sixth on the conference’s all-time scoring list behind South Alabama’s Jeff Hodges in fifth with 2,221 points from 1985-89. Among active Division I players, Brown ranks ninth in scoring, 16th in assists (491) and 21st in steals (184). 

• Louisiana senior forward JaKeenan Gant is the only Division I player averaging 20 points (21.1), 8.0 rebounds (8.4) and 2.75 blocks (2.91) per game. He ranks in the conference’s top five in five categories – first in blocks (2.9), second in total rebounds per game (8.4) and field goal percentage (.544) and third in scoring (21.1) and offensive rebounds per game (3.1). Gant remains among the nation’s best shot blockers, entering the week ranked fifth in blocks per game and total blocks (67). His 45-point, 11-rebound effort against Little Rock on Jan. 5 marked the sixth time this season a Division I player notched a 40-point, 10-rebound game. Gant is averaging league-bests 26.4 points and 9.3 rebounds per game in conference play.

• The Sun Belt’s top team across the major computer rankings – Texas State ranked 115th in the NCAA NET Rankings, 97th in the ESPN Basketball Power Index and 103rd in the Ken Pomeroy Ratings, Georgia State ranked 56th in the RealTime RPI, 57th in the CBS Sports RPI and 68th in the KPI Rankings and Georgia Southern ranked 124th in the Jeff Sagarin Rankings. As a conference, the Sun Belt is ranked 15th by the Sagarin Rankings and 17th by the NCAA NET Rankings. Sun Belt teams combined for a .500 or better record against 11 other Division I conferences during the regular season.

• In the latest CollegeInsider.com Men’s Mid-Major Top 25, Texas State (20th) was ranked with Georgia State, UTA and Georgia Southern receiving votes. The Bobcats’ ranking of 17th for the week of Jan. 21 was its highest in the poll in program history.

• The Sun Belt has racked up a number of national weekly honors during the season –  Lou Henson Award National Player of the Week four times (ULM senior guard Daishon Smith on Jan. 7 and Feb. 11, Texas State junior guard Nijal Pearson on Dec. 3 and Coastal Carolina senior forward Zac Cuthbertson on Feb. 4) and College Sports Madness National Mid-Major Player of the Week twice (Smith on Jan. 7 and Feb. 11).

• Several Sun Belt men's and women's basketball programs are participating in the Coaches vs. Cancer 3-Point Challenge. The 3-Point Challenge is a nationwide program that unites college and high school basketball teams and their fans for a common cause – ending cancer. Fans donate for every three-point shot their team makes or join their team as a fundraiser to benefit the American Cancer Society’s life-saving mission. This year’s college initiative runs from February 1 to March 5.

• Georgia State head coach Ron Hunter is once again competing in the INFINITI “Timeout For the Win” Challenge. This year, Hunter is one of 48 basketball coaches taking a “TIMEOUT FOR THE WIN” (#TIMEOUTFTW) to defeat cancer by raising one million dollars for Coaches vs. Cancer through various donation methods, activations and events. Through March 11, fans can vote for their favorite coach via INFINITITIMEOUT.com or social media (Twitter and Instagram). There are three required elements to trigger a social media vote – post a back and white picture of yourself taking a basketball timeout and include the hashtags #TIMEOUTFTW and #CoachRonHunter in your social media copy. The three coaches with the most votes will receive a portion of INFINITI’s $600,000 donated in their name to the American Cancer Society.

• The 2019 Sun Belt Men’s Basketball Championship is set for March 12 and 14-17. The tournament begins on Tuesday, March 12, with two first-round games taking place at on-campus sites. The remaining eight teams converge on Lakefront Arena in New Orleans starting on Thursday, March 14, with the winner earning the league’s automatic bid to the 2019 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship. First-round, second-round, quarterfinal and semifinal games are set for live coverage on ESPN+. The championship game is scheduled for Sunday, March 17 at 1 p.m. CT on ESPN2. Complete ticket information is available on SunBeltSports.org.

PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Daishon Smith, ULM (Sr., G, Jacksonville, Fla.)
ULM senior guard Daishon Smith averaged 37.0 points, 7.0 rebounds, 6.5 assists and 2.5 steals per game while leading the Warhawks to a home sweep over Georgia State and Georgia Southern. Smith hit 20-of-41 (.488) field goal attempts (49 percent), including 10-of-22 (.455) from three-point range, and 24-of-26 (.923) free throw attempts. In addition, he played 77 out of 80 minutes. The Wichita State transfer scored a game-high 38 points, connecting on 5-of-11 shots from three-point range, adding six rebounds, six assists and two steals in ULM’s 88-79 victory over Georgia Southern. He netted 21 second-half points against the Eagles, accounting for 15 of the Warhawks’ 17 points during a 5:14 stretch. Smith opened the week with a solid all-around performance in ULM’s 82-76 win over then-first-place Georgia State, finishing with 36 points, a career-best eight rebounds, seven assists and three steals. He scored 22 second-half points against the Panthers, including seven straight during a 30-second span in the final 1:37 to turn a one-point deficit into an 80-74 lead. Smith went a perfect 11-for-11 from the free throw line. For his efforts, he was named the Lou Henson Award Co-National Player of the Week and College Sports Madness National Mid-Major Player of the Week. The Jacksonville, Fla., native dedicated his performances to the memory of his younger brother, Marquis Smith, who was killed on Feb. 5.

2018-19 Weekly Award Winners
November 13: D'Marcus Simonds, Georgia State
November 20: Tookie Brown, Georgia Southern
November 27: Nijal Pearson, Texas State
December 3: Nijal Pearson, Texas State
December 10: Alonzo Sule, Texas State
December 17: Ty Cockfield II, Arkansas State
January 7: Daishon Smith, ULM
January 14: JaKeenan Gant, Louisiana
January 21: Jordon Varnado, Troy
January 28: JaKeenan Gant, Louisiana and Trhae Mitchell, South Alabama
February 4: Zac Cuthbertson, Coastal Carolina and Brian Warren, UTA
February 11: Daishon Smith, ULM

UPCOMING SCHEDULE
Wednesday, February 13
*South Alabama at Georgia Southern (ESPN+), 6 p.m.
*Troy at Georgia State (ESPN+), 6 p.m.

Thursday, February 14
*UTA at Little Rock (ESPN+), 6:30 p.m.
*Texas State at Arkansas State (ESPN+), 7 p.m.

Friday, February 15
*South Alabama at Georgia State (ESPN+), 6 p.m.
*Troy at Georgia Southern (ESPN2), 8 p.m.

Saturday, February 16
*Coastal Carolina at Appalachian State (ESPN+), 1 p.m.
*Texas State at Little Rock (ESPN+), 3 p.m.
*UTA at Arkansas State (ESPN+), 4 p.m.
*ULM at Louisiana (ESPN+), 7 p.m.

*Sun Belt Conference contest
All Times are Central and Subject to Change