TIPPING OFF: The Sun Belt Conference Men’s Basketball 2023-24 season is set to begin on Monday, November 6. 
 
DUKE-IN’ IT OUT: James Madison was predicted to win the 2023-24 Sun Belt Conference title in a vote of the league’s 14 head coaches. The Dukes garnered seven first-place votes. James Madison, coming off a 22-11 season, returns seven letterwinners and welcomes six newcomers for the 2023-24 campaign, as they look to build on this past season, which saw them rack up 22 wins, the most for the program since the historic 1981-82 campaign. Of the Dukes’ returners is Terrence Edwards, Jr., the 2023 Sun Belt Sixth Man of the Year and All-Sun Belt Second Team selection. Last season, the guard led James Madison in both scoring (13.3 ppg) and three-point percentage (45.8%), while registering the third-highest rebounding average (5.1 rpg). 
 
THE REAL AC: Southern Miss’ Austin Crowley was selected as the Sun Belt’s 2023-24 Preseason Player of the Year. Crowley, the 2022-23 Sun Belt Newcomer of the Year, put together a breakout campaign for Southern Miss in his first season in the Black and Gold, earning Lou Henson All-America, NABC All-District 23 and First Team All-Sun Belt honors. The West Point, Miss., native, led all Golden Eagles in scoring at 16.0 points per game and finished with 63 steals.
 
FIRST CLASS: Sun Belt men’s basketball will feature a profusion of experienced players, highlighted by its Preseason All-Sun Belt First Team selections. In addition to Crowley and Edwards, Jr., App State’s Donovan Gregory, Old Dominion’s Chaunce Jenkins, Troy’s Christyon Eugene and Louisiana’s Themus Fulks received First-Team recognition. 
 
Gregory, who played his way to an All-Sun Belt third-team selection last season, was one of three Sun Belt players to post over 300 points, 100 rebounds and 100 assists a year ago. He also became the first Mountaineer to record 1,000 points, 500 rebounds, 300 assists and 150 steals in his career. 
 
Jenkins was named All-Sun Belt Third Team last season after averaging 13.5 points and 3.4 rebounds per game. Starting 17 of 31 games in 2022-23, Jenkins scored in double figures in 23 games with a stretch of six straight. The 6-foot-4 guard had five games of 20+ points scored including 23 points in the regular season finale against Marshall. 
 
Eugene, a native of Spring Texas, was named to the Preseason All-Sun Belt First Team following a season in which he set career highs in field-goal percentage (.456), 3-point percentage (.393) and free throw percentage (.792). Eugene also finished second on the team and 23^rd in the Sun Belt in scoring at 12 points per game. 
 
Last season Fulks wrote his name in the Louisiana record books and asserted himself as one of the best point guards in the country by dishing out 205 assists, the seventh most in a season in program history. The junior was one of three players to start all 34 games in the team's run to the NCAA Tournament. He scored a career-high 23 points in the conference championship game against South Alabama and followed that with 11 assists in the NCAA Tournament against Tennessee.
 
RUNNING BACK 2022-23: The 2022-23 season was a historic one for men’s basketball in the Sun Belt. Four new members helped fuel a league that is undoubtedly on the rise with unlimited potential for the future. 
• Louisiana captured the 2023 Hercules Tires Sun Belt Conference Men’s Basketball Championship and earned the No. 13 seed in the NCAA Tournament. That marked the highest seed for a Sun Belt team in the NCAA tournament since the 2016 season.
• Southern Miss, the 2023 Sun Belt Conference Regular-Season Champion, also made history a year ago, finishing 2022-23 as the most improved NCAA Division I men’s basketball team. The Golden Eagles also turned in the best single-season improvement in NCAA Division I history, according to the NCAA’s records, which date back to 1974. Southern Miss posted a 25-8 record this past season, improving from 7-26 the previous year. 
• The Sun Belt Conference placed four teams in the top-100 of the NCAA NET Rankings on Selection Sunday. It marked the first time since 2018 that the Sun Belt had placed even one team in the top-100 of the NET/RPI on Selection Sunday. 
 
MAC-SBC CHALLENGE: The MAC-SBC Challenge—a scheduling alliance in the sports of men’s and women’s basketball—will tip off during the opening week of the 2023-24 season this November with 12 Sun Belt Conference (SBC) men’s basketball programs traveling to compete against the 12 Mid-American Conference (MAC) teams and the 12 MAC women’s basketball teams visiting 12 SBC programs. The second MAC-SBC Challenge contest for each team will take place on Saturday, Feb. 10, 2024, with the matchups set based on real-time NET rankings and announced in January. The MAC women and Sun Belt men will host the February matchups. Each MAC and Sun Belt team included in the MAC-SBC Challenge, currently scheduled to take place during the 2023-24 and 2024-25 campaigns, is guaranteed one home and one away game each season. 
 

Date	Game	Time
Wednesday, Nov. 8	Troy at Ohio	6:00 p.m.
Thursday, Nov. 9	James Madison at Kent State	6:00 p.m.
Friday, Nov. 10	Southern Miss at Akron	6:00 p.m.
Saturday, Nov. 11	Texas State at Miami (OH)	10:00 a.m.
Saturday, Nov. 11	Georgia Southern at Eastern Michigan	11:00 a.m.
Saturday, Nov. 11	Arkansas State at Bowling Green	11:00 a.m.
Saturday, Nov. 11	ULM at Central Michigan	11:00 a.m.
Saturday, Nov. 11	Georgia State at Western Michigan	12:00 p.m.
Saturday, Nov. 11	Old Dominion at Ball State	1:00 p.m.
Saturday, Nov. 11	South Alabama at Buffalo	1:00 p.m.
Saturday, Nov. 11	App State at Northern Illinois	2:00 p.m.
Saturday, Nov. 11	Louisiana at Toledo	6:00 p.m.

*All Times CT.
 
LIVE LOOK: Five Sun Belt Conference men’s basketball games will appear on either ESPN2 or ESPNU during the 2023-24 regular season. Three Sun Belt Conference matchups, as well as the second MAC-SBC Challenge date, will be part of the wildcard appearances during the 2024 slate. The game selections will be determined at a later date. The wildcard windows are Saturday, January 27 [6 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. CT, ESPN2/ESPNU], Thursday, February 22 [9 p.m. ET / 8 p.m. CT, ESPNU], and Saturday, February 24 [6 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. CT, ESPN2/ESPNU]. The second MAC-SBC Challenge matchup, set for Saturday, February 10 [6 p.m. ET / 5p.m. CT], will also air on ESPN2/ESPNU. The matchups will be based on real-time NET rankings announced in January. ESPN2 will also televise the non-conference matchup featuring App State hosting Auburn on Sunday, December 3 at 1 p.m. ET / 12 p.m. CT. 
 
PARTY IN PENSACOLA: The 2023-24 Sun Belt Conference season culminates in the 2024 Sun Belt Conference Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournaments at the Pensacola Bay Center in Pensacola, Fla. from March 5-11. Tickets are slated to go on sale on December 1.