OMAHA, Neb. – When Coastal Carolina baseball takes the field at Charles Schwab Stadium on Saturday to compete for a national championship, it will carry the banner for the Sun Belt Conference, which has undergone a meteoric rise since expanding to its current 14-member configuration ahead of the 2022-23 season. 
 
The Chanticleers—proud members of the Sun Belt since the day after winning their baseball national championship in 2016—will be the second Sun Belt program to compete in an NCAA Division I national championship final during the 2024-25 season, following Marshall men’s soccer. With that appearance, the Sun Belt will join the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC as 1-of-5 conferences with multiple appearances in NCAA Division I national championship finals this season. 
 
The Sun Belt regular-season and tournament champion Chanticleers have not lost a game since April 22, including an unblemished run through postseason play. Coastal Carolina carried the longest-ever winning streak into the College World Series (23 games) and now into the College World Series national championship round (26 games)—snapping a 77-year-old record 18-game winning streak entering the national championship by USC in 1948 in the process. 
 
Sun Belt Coach of the Year Kevin Schnall summed up the Coastal Carolina run following Wednesday’s national semifinal by saying, “It’s incredible, but it’s not unbelievable.” 
 
That statement could just as easily have been describing the Sun Belt’s rise since the 2022-2023 season. The league has paced all non-autonomy conferences in Bowl Season representation in football for three-straight years—including leading the nation with 12 Bowl Season qualifiers in 2023—and established a conference record with 37 NCAA postseason and Bowl Season berths during the 2023-24 season—when it was a multi-bid league in women’s soccer, men’s soccer, volleyball, football, softball and baseball. 
 
The Sun Belt’s first-ever appearance in the College World Series final comes on the heels of a four-season span in which it has sent 14 teams to NCAA Baseball Regionals, 10 to NCAA Baseball Regional finals and two to NCAA Baseball Super Regionals. That grouping has included four regional hosts and national seeds—No. 13 Coastal Carolina (2025), No. 16 Southern Miss (2025), No. 10 Coastal Carolina (2023) and No. 16 Georgia Southern (2022). 
 
Historically one of the nation’s premier conferences in the diamond sports, the Sun Belt has been a multi-bid league in baseball in 30-of-36 seasons since 1989 and in softball in 11-of-15 seasons since 2010. The conference has produced seven Super Regional and two Men’s College World Series teams in baseball since the current tournament format was adopted in 1999 and eight Super Regional and three Women’s College World Series teams in softball since the conference began sponsoring the sport in 2000. 
 
In the three seasons since reestablishing its men’s soccer conference in 2022, the Sun Belt has sent nine teams to the NCAA Tournament, with two advancing to the Men’s College Cup—Marshall (2024) and West Virginia (2023). That grouping has included five national seeds—No. 13 Marshall (2024), No. 1 Marshall (2023), No. 5 West Virginia (2023), No. 12 UCF (2023) and No. 1 Kentucky (2022)—and the No. 1 overall seeds in 2022 and 2023. 
 
In football, the Sun Belt’s .571 bowl winning percentage during the College Football Playoff era (2014-2024) trails only the SEC (.578), while its .545 all-time bowl winning percentage leads all non-autonomy conferences since the conference began sponsoring football in 2001. 
 
Building upon its own 2016 national championship and the Sun Belt’s sustained rise across a number of conference-sponsored sports, Coastal Carolina baseball will attempt to take the next step for the conference in the College World Series final this weekend. With a championship series victory, the Chanticleers would become the Sun Belt’s second-ever NCAA team national champion, joining Old Dominion women’s basketball (1985). 
 
Regardless of this weekend’s result, Schnall sums up the sentiment for Coastal Carolina baseball and the Sun Belt Conference by stating, “This is not a fluke. This is not a Cinderella deal…and we’re not going away.”  
 
With 14 universities in 10 contiguous states, the Sun Belt has established itself as a power player in NCAA Division I as 1-of-5 conferences with multiple appearances in NCAA Division I national championship finals this season and an opportunity to hoist a national championship trophy this weekend. 
 
The Sun Belt is rising. This is not a fluke. This is not a Cinderella deal…and we’re not going away.