2019-20 Sun Belt Men's Basketball News and Notes:
Standings | Composite Schedule | Stats  
 
AROUND #SUNBELTMBB
• Sun Belt Conference men's basketball has a busy week ahead with three days filled with league matchups on ESPN+ to open the first full week of the new year.
 
• Little Rock (10-5, 4-0 Sun Belt) enters the week in sole possession of first place, marking the first time the Trojans have sat atop the league standings since going 17-3 and winning the regular-season title in 2015-16. Little Rock's four Sun Belt victories have come by a combined 11 points – ULM by one (73-72), Louisiana by three (69-66), Texas State by four (72-68) and UTA by three (92-89). The Trojans have won five-straight games, their longest winning streak since winning six straight during the non-conference portion of the 2016-17 season.

• Georgia State (10-5, 3-1) sits just one game behind Little Rock. The Panthers' success has been in part to their play on the defensive end of the floor. Georgia State is among the NCAA Division I leaders in three-point field goal percentage defense (5th, .255) and steals per game (11th, 9.8).

• Arkansas State (10-5, 2-2) makes it three Sun Belt teams with double-digit wins going in the heart of the conference schedule. The Red Wolves are 10-0 when shooting 40 percent or better and 9-1 when scoring 65 or more points through their first 15 games.
 
• Louisiana head coach Bob Marlin stands fifth in conference history with 102 Sun Belt wins. With his next victory in league play, Marlin moves into a tie for fourth place with former Arkansas State head coach Dickie Nutt.
 
• Entering the week, Texas State senior guard Nijal Pearson is tied for 19th in Sun Belt history with 1,801 points. His career total ranks 11th among active Division I players. Pearson ranks second in the Sun Belt in scoring at 18.7 points per game.
 
• Poised to move into the conference's top 25 in career points before season end are Georgia Southern redshirt senior guard Ike Smith with 1,686 career points (18th among Division I players) and South Alabama redshirt senior forward Josh Ajayi with 1,488 career points (43rd among active Division I players).
 
• South Alabama (8-7, 1-3) boasts the Sun Belt's top two scorers in terms of field goal percentage – graduate guard Chad Lott (.587, 84-of-143) and Ajayi (.577, 79-of-137).
 
• Georgia State holds the Sun Belt's top ranking in several rankings, including the CBSSports.com RPI (55th), Jeff Sagarin Ratings (101st), NCAA NET Rankings (107th), ESPN College Basketball Power Index (107th) and Ken Pomeroy Ratings (107th). The Sun Belt is currently ranked 14th among the Division I conferences, according to the Sagarin Ratings.
 
• Arkansas State and Georgia State were among the teams receiving votes in the most recent CollegeInsider.com Men's Mid-Major Top 25.
 
• The Sun Belt is one of 10 NCAA Division I conferences that received approval from the NCAA Men’s and Women’s Basketball Rules committees to permit the use of electronically transmitted data to the bench for coaching purposes during the 2019-20 season.
 
• Pearson, Smith and South Alabama redshirt senior forward Trhae Mitchell were among the preseason picks on the watch list for the 2019-20 Lou Henson Award, presented annually to the nation's top Division I mid-major player.

• The Sun Belt is slated to showcase a record 341 games on the ESPN family of networks – 327 regular-season home games (172 men and 151 women) and 18 Sun Belt Basketball Championship games (nine men and nine women).

• The Sun Belt pulled in numerous national preseason honors and recognitions, headlined by South Alabama recognized as the conference's preseason favorite by multiple publications.

• The Jaguars were selected by the conference's 12 head coaches as the preseason favorite as well to go along with Mitchell selected as the league's Preseason Player of the Year.
 
• Sun Belt men’s basketball has three new head coaches roaming the sidelines this season – Appalachian State's Dustin Kerns, Georgia State's Rob Lanier and Troy's Scott Cross.
 
• Three former Sun Belt standouts are on NBA rosters this season. Former Little Rock star Rayjon Tucker is the latest addition, signing with the Utah Jazz on Dec. 23. Tucker spent the first part of the season with the Wisconsin Herd, the NBA G League affiliate of the Milwaukee Bucks, starting 16 games and averaging 23.8 points, 4.6 rebounds and 2.8 assists in 33.8 minutes per game. Tucker joins Louisiana's Elfrid Payton, who is in his sixth NBA season and first with the New York Knicks, and UTA's Kevin Hervey, who signed a two-way contract with the Oklahoma City Thunder on Dec. 13.

• The 2020 Sun Belt Men’s Basketball Championship is set to feature a 10-team bracket with first-round games on Saturday, March 7, second-round games on Monday, March 9 and quarterfinal games on Wednesday, March 11 hosted by the higher seeds on campus sites. The four men's teams that advance from the quarterfinals will then converge on New Orleans and the Smoothie King Center, home of the NBA's New Orleans Pelicans, for semifinals games on Saturday, March 14 and championship game on Sunday, March 15. The No. 1 and No. 2 seeds receive byes directly to the semifinals. First-round, second-round, quarterfinal and semifinal games are set for live coverage on ESPN+. The championship game is set for Sunday, March 15 at 1 p.m. CT on ESPN2.
 
CO-PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
Kamani Johnson, Little Rock (So., F, Brooklyn, N.Y.)
Little Rock sophomore forward Kamani Johnson posted a pair of double-doubles in leading the Trojans to a pair of Sun Belt Conference wins. Johnson finished with 15 points and 10 boards in the win over Texas State, shooting 5-of-8 (.625) from the floor and a perfect 5-of-5 from the free throw line. He scored a career-best 30 points, grabbed a career-high 13 rebounds and dished out a career-high five assists in the win over UTA, shooting 8-of-12 (.667) from the floor and 14-of-16 (.875) from the free throw line. Johnson enters the week with four double-doubles and third in the conference in rebounds per game (7.6) and second in offensive rebounds per game (2.9).
 
Michael Ertel, ULM (Jr., G, Indianapolis, Ind.)
ULM junior guard Michael Ertel averaged 25.0 points and 4.0 assists per game as the Warhawks completed a home sweep over Troy and South Alabama to even their Sun Belt Conference record. Ertel had one of the best games in the country in the win over South Alabama with 11 three-pointers as a part of a career-high 39-point performance. His 11 treys set the school's single-game record, tied the Sun Belt record for a league game (with Lamar's Keith Veney's 11 made vs. Little Rock on Feb. 11, 1993) and were the most made by a Division I player this season. In that game, it took Ertel just 20 minutes to eclipse his previous career high of 26 points by scoring 28 points in the opening half, hitting 10-of-12 shots from the field including 8-of-10 from three-point land. He contributed 11 points, two assists and one rebound in the win over Troy. In two games, he hit 17 of his 29 field goal attempts (.586), including 12-of-23 from three-point land (.522), and 4-of-5 free-throw attempts (.800) along with an assist-to-turnover ratio of 8-to-2. For his efforts, Ertel was named the Lou Henson Award National Player of the Week by CollegeInsider.com.
 
2019-20 Weekly Award Winners
November 12: Josh Ajayi, South Alabama
November 19: Markquis Nowell, Little Rock
November 26: Elijah McCadden, Georgia Southern
December 3: Markquis Nowell, Little Rock
December 9: DeVante Jones, Coastal Carolina
December 16: Nijal Pearson, Texas State
December 23: Justin Forrest, Appalachian State
December 30: Ike Smith, Georgia Southern
January 6: Kamani Johnson, Little Rock and Michael Ertel, ULM

UPCOMING SCHEDULE
Monday, January 6
*Louisiana at Appalachian State, 6 p.m.
*ULM at Coastal Carolina (ESPN+), 6 p.m.
*Georgia Southern at Little Rock (ESPN+), 6:30 p.m.
*Georgia State at Arkansas State (ESPN+), 7 p.m.
*South Alabama at UTA (ESPN+), 7 p.m.
*Troy at Texas State (ESPN+), 7 p.m.
 
Thursday, January 9
*Little Rock at Troy (ESPN+), 6 p.m.
*ULM at Georgia Southern (ESPN+), 6 p.m.
*Louisiana at Georgia State (ESPN+), 6 p.m.
*Appalachian State at UTA (ESPN+), 7 p.m.
*Arkansas State at South Alabama (ESPN+), 7 p.m.
*Coastal Carolina at Texas State (ESPN+), 7 p.m.
 
Saturday, January 11
*ULM at Georgia State (ESPN+), 1 p.m.
*Coastal Carolina at UTA (ESPN+), 2 p.m.
*Louisiana at Georgia Southern (ESPN+), 3 p.m.
*Appalachian State at Texas State (ESPN+), 4 p.m.
*Troy at Arkansas State (ESPN+), 4 p.m.
*South Alabama at Little Rock (ESPN+), 4:30 p.m.
 
*Sun Belt Conference contest
All Times are Central and Subject to Change