Patriot League, Sun Belt Tournament Previews

Three tournaments start today. No daytime basketball yet.

Patriot League

Bracket

Format

The Patriot League follows a fairly standard ten team format. All ten team teams are invited with the 7 through 10 seeds playing in the opening round. A travel day separates the first round and quarterfinals and two travel days follow the quarterfinals and semifinals. All games take place on the campus of the higher seed in the matchup.

PerpetuallyAggrievedWildcat: BORRRRRRING. Shouldn't there be a bracket requirement that the lowest seeded team also has to play with a millstone around their necks or facing the downhill basket?

How to Watch

First Round and Quarterfinals: ESPN+
Semifinals and Championship: CBSSN

Favorites

1 seed Navy Midshipmen - Navy went 17-1 and won the Patriot League by six full games. They have the conference's only top 100 defense (or top 200 for that matter) and arguably the conference's best two players with senior outside shooter Austin Benigni and senior post player Aidan Kehoe.

3 seed Colgate Raiders (2019, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 champions)- At one point this season Colgate sat 10-3 in the Patriot League and trailed Navy by just two games. Then they lost four of their final five including a sweep at the hands of Navy. The Raiders are reeling and starter Jalen Cox (the Patriot's third leading scorer) is dealing with a concussion, but if anyone is going to challenge Navy with the auto-bid on the line, it's likely to be Cox and his head coach Matt Langel who has become used to winning these tournaments.

5 seed American Eagles (2025 champions) - The only team to beat Navy this season in this field, the Eagles didn't just win. They won by 14 after holding Navy to a season low 51 points.

Never Made the Tournament Club Members

Army Black Knights (founding member, 1939)

Army was of course invited to one NCAA Tournament but their head coach was a real jackass and turned down the invitation. Wonder what that guy went on to do later in his career?

Kind of...: If you've ever read A Season on the Brink, you might remember that foreword is by Al McGuire, who was known as a relatively intense coach. More on the eccentric side, but kind of a Dick Vermeil retire-young-because-of-the-grind sort of intense. Anyway, in the foreword he recounts seeing Knight and Army at the 1970 NIT (that Marquette won...after turning down an NCAA bid; the NCAA prohibited that going forward). Basically, Army lost in the first game of semis in a close game and McGurie saw Knight leaving the court just drenched in sweat and was like..."dude, that guy is intense...I don't really get it, it's just a game." Three years later Knight had Indiana in the Final Four.

Note: Between Cleveland State (Horizon preview), Navy, and my Season on the Brink references, 1986 is getting quite the workout in these previews so far!

Other Long Droughts

Navy (1998)
Boston (2011)

Boston would have made it in 2020. They won the Patriot League tournament that season before the pandemic shut down the world.

Rooting Interests

Navy having an legitimate opportunity to get back to the Big Dance for the first time in 28 years - shit, I'm old - is hard to root against especially when they dominated the regular season.

If you can't find it in yourself to root for Navy or Army because of their association with this nation's armed forces at the moment, might I suggest rooting for Boston? The Terriers have the second longest drought in the Patriot (among teams that have made it) and had punched their ticket in 2020.

If you are a misguided Big Ten fan that thinks your team is getting a 2 seed instead of a three (ha!), you could root against potential 15 seed Navy in order for there to be a weaker field.

PAW: The Patriot League is baaaaaad. Bad bad bad bad baaaaad.

One of the things I remember back when I was – allegedly – a Bill Carmody fanatic was that the Holy Cross fans really do think that someday soon it's going to be the 2000s again and Ralph Willard will walk through that door and lead them to greatness. Just a bunch of weird Bills Simmons (ed.--but he repeats himself).

Five of the ten teams in the conference are over 300th in Kenpom. Lehigh is 294th.

The Mountain Hawks are the 2nd seed in the conference.

Bad.

The Terriers are a vague interest, but they play so goddamn slow that it's tough to get in their corner. Then again, that's true of everyone in the Patriot, where only Dr. Loyola is top-half in the country in AdjT, at 124th-fastest.

Conference NCAA Tournament History

Last season American lost in the First Four to Mount St. Mary's 72-83.

The most recent NCAA victory for the Patriot League came from Holy Cross during a First Four game over Southern. (Go fightin' Carmodys.)

Lehigh made the 2012 Round of 32 thanks to a victory over 2 seed Duke.

Bucknell made the Round of 32 in back to back seasons over Kansas (2005) and Arkansas (2006).

Navy has three Elite 8s to their name with the most recent coming in 1986 with all-American center David Robinson.

Boston University made the 1959 Elite 8 before losing to West Virginia 86-92. They beat future conference mate Navy in the Sweet 16 that season.

Lafayette "made" the 1957 Sweet 16 by virtue of being in the field. They were good that season but couldn't beat Syracuse in their first game.

Holy Cross were your 1947 NCAA tournament champions behind the play of point guard Bob Cousy. They made the Final Four the following season as well.

Colgate is 0-7, Lafayette is 0-5, and American is 0-4 in the NCAA Tournament.

Kind of...: MSU assistant coach Doug Wojcik was the PG on that '86 Navy team. The year before, Navy pulled a 12-5 upset over LSU before falling by 5 points to Maryland. David Robinson and Len Bias dueling...man. In '86, Navy punched their Sweet 16 ticket by scoring 65 second half points against 2-seed Syracuse IN the Carrier Dome! The shot 52 FTs on the day! Robinson dropped 35 pts, 11 rbds, and 7 blocks. In the Sweet 16 win over 14-seed Cleveland State, he went 22/14/9. The next year, Navy lost an 8/9 opening round game to Michigan. They were tripped up by the newfangled 3-point shot as Navy went 3-14 while Michigan hit 12-20. (Garde Thompson was 9-12!). But Robinson went out in style, becoming the fourth, and, to date, final, player to drop 50 points in a NCAA tournament game.

!!BoilerUp89 is going to kill me, but it's worth nothing that a future NBA MVP (and legit top 20-30 player ALL TIME) spent a few years rampaging through an overmatched mid-major conference and still didn't average as many FTs per game as Zach Edey did playing in a power conference!!

Storylines and Likely Seeds

Navy is the storyline in this season's Patriot League. They've gone 17-1. They are likely a 15 seed but could sneak onto the 14 line without too much chaos in front of them.

Any other winner is likely headed to Dayton as a 16 seed seed in the First Four.

One final storyline to talk about. Matt Langel won 4 straight Patriot League tournament championships and 5 of 6. Should he have stayed and waited for better job offers than he was getting? Or has he missed his moment?

Kind of...: Were there good offers than Langel turned down? I don't know the background here, but my sense of the Patriot is that it's more a place where major college coaches (Carmody, DiChellis, Willard, Jeff Jones) fall back to after they get fired than a conference that produces major conference coaching prospects. Other than Pat Chambers, I don't see any Patriot League coaches who really made much of a leap up the ranks this century.

PAW: The Patriot is mostly early-career guys now outside Jones, Brett Reed of Lehigh, and Langel (as well as former Bucknell and soon-to-be-former Holy Cross coach Dave Paulsen). It's just that none of them appear to be good and none of these schools appear able to draw players or build excitement for modern college basketball. It's a conference cheered on by the Bills Simmons of the world, masturbating to the way things once were.

Anyway, on the tournament: Navy defends well – 81st in AdjD – though they beat literally no one. They put a minor scare in Penn State (80-71), kept it close with UNC (73-61), and lost to Yale by 30. Their other non-con losses were part of a 1-2 MTE in which they got blown out by UNC Wilmington and lost to Southeast Louisiana. Their best non-conference win was over Presbyterian, and the Blue Hose are 277th in Kenpom as I write this.

This conference is dogshit, and I'm annoyed I spent so much time learning about it. Go Terriers? Why not.

Sun Belt

Bracket

Format

It's a ladder bracket. An ugly, ugly ladder bracket. All fourteen teams are participating. The bottom four teams have to win 7 games to go dancing. Somehow I think they wouldn't have the energy to dance if they played 7 games. And because the Sun Belt hates their players, each round is the day after the preceding one.

All games take place in sunny Pensacola, Florida at the Pensacola Bay Center.

Perpetually Aggrieved Wildcat: I'm sorry this is just no way to run a conference tournament. I don't care the benefits for the WCC or whomever.

Take a look at the tiebreakers that led to this:

Kind of...: Hey Sun Belt, good job making it easier to cheer for major conferences. Who's the Gonzaga you're trying to protect in this mess of a bracket? Arkansas State is the league's best team according to KenPom, but has to win five games because they lost out on some stupid tiebreaker process in a 14 team league with an 18 game schedule. The Red Wolves won 7 of their last 8 (the loss was in OT), and now they're dealing with a bracket that essentially takes the regular-season and dumps it in the garbage. Nice work dipshits.

How to Watch

First Round Thru Semifinals: ESPN+
Championship Game: ESPN/ESPN2

Favorites

1 seed Troy Trojans (2025 champions)- SF Victor Valdes will have the ball in his hands a lot. He's not an efficient scorer but does well getting to the rim and drawing fouls. The Trojans are best served when he dishes the ball to brothers Cobi and Cooper Campbell for threes or in the post to Theo Seng. Unfortunately Seng has a knee injury and is questionable for the conference tournament.

2 seed Marshall Thundering Herd - Marshall has an awful defense but the best offense in the conference. They are the best three point shooting and two point shooting team in the Sun Belt.

These are the favorites by virtue of having to win less games than everyone else. Ignore the fact that Marshall was in a six way tie for 2nd place and that the 7 seed Arkansas State (the best team in the conference per Kenpom) has to win three games to even face Marshall in the semifinals. Arkansas State isn't winning this tournament. They play fast (9th fastest tempo in the country) and that's not a style that lends itself to winning five games in five days even if you are the best team in the conference. Don't be surprised if App State or Coastal Carolina win the Sun Belt tournament.

Never Made the Tournament Club Members

N/A

Other Long Droughts

Georgia Southern Eagles (1992)
Louisiana Monroe Warhawks (1996)
Texas State Bobcats (1997)
Arkansas State Red Wolves (1999)

Rooting Interests

Root for any of the 11, 12, 13, or 14 seeds. Hope the Sun Belt's goofy-ass format backfires on them. Let chaos reign!

Kind of...: Seriously, I'm deciding to become a two-tiered mid-major fan. If your conference has a stupid tournament, I'm rooting against your NCAA teams. The last thing I want is Marshall to pull an upset and some goober commissioner of some other conference saying "See, that stepladder thing worked! We need to do that."

Play a 20-game conference schedule. After 13 games, when everybody has played everybody once, take the top 8 and make the last 7 games the completion of the home-and-homes among those teams. Regular-season champ goes to the tournament. Done and done.

PAW: I do want to say Go Marshall, because I miss Dan D'Antoni and Hillbilly Basketball – I don't follow enough here to know if Cornelius Jackson (a Herd alumnus) has kept it up.

But, given how horrible this is, I hope Arkansas State makes a run to the final and then whips out their collective nuts at the trophy presentation.

Kind of...: That would be awesome.

Conference NCAA Tournament History

Last season Troy lost to Kentucky in an opening round blowout.

The most recent NCAA victory came in 2024 when James Madison upset 5 seed Wisconsin 72-61. Their head coach Mark Byington is now leading Vanderbilt. I'd show the highlights but we've got an even better Sun Belt tournament moment.

Marshall made the 2018 Round of 32 by virtue of a 81-75 victory over 4 seed Wichita State before falling to in-state foe West Virginia.

Georgia State has won two opening round games by a single point. They defeated 2001 6 seed Wisconsin 50-49 and 2015 3 seed Baylor 57-56. The 2015 game is famous as son R.J. hit the game winning three for head coach and dad Ron Hunter.

Old Dominion has three Round of 32 appearances to their name with the most recent coming at the hands of Notre Dame in 2011.

South Alabama made the 1989 Round of 32 thanks to a two point victory over Alabama but lost to eventual champion Michigan.

Louisiana has made two Sweet 16s in 1972 and 1973 although both were later vacated.

Kind of...: That '89 South Alabama team was fun. They had Junie Lewis and Jeff Hodge (both second-round NBA picks, though neither played in the league) who were known as "Peanut Butter and Jelly." Yeah, it was a promotional thing, but it worked. The Jaguars averaged over 90 ppg in '89, and though they were "only" 22-8 in the regular season (three of the losses were to NCAA teams Arkansas, FSU, and Providence), they were getting some "team to avoid" buzz. Got an 11-seed, which tells you something (even if 9 might have been more appropriate), against...in-state rival Alabama!

South Alabama trailed by 16 at halftime (!) but came back to win it on a Hodge three-pointer with :04 to play (though look at the final shot Alabama is able to get off!), 86-84. Against Michigan in the round of 32, the game was tied at 80 with just over two minutes to play. Damn good team.

Storylines and Likely Seeds

I don't see how any conversation about the Sun Belt tournament doesn't start and end with this ridiculous format. I can sort of understand the appeal of a ladder format, but it's ridiculous to design a tournament format where teams are expected to play seven games in seven days if they keep winning. It's also ridiculous that 11-7 Arkansas State has to win three more tournament games than 11-7 Marshall to get the auto bid.

The Sun Belt is likely a 15 seed this year. Maybe a long shot falls to a 16 seed and maybe one of the stronger teams could enter into the conversation for a 14 seed if upsets happen in other leagues, but the Sun Belt feels like pretty good bet to have a 15 next to their tournament champion come Selection Sunday.

Do you like the Sun Belt's ladder format? If yes, why? Are you rooting for the US armed forces or do you hate the troops?