The Sun Belt Conference Tournament Is The Most Bizarre Thing In The World But It Rocks
I know it's still late January but this was brought up on the broadcast last night of Arkansas State vs App State, which if you were a true ball head you were watching.
Arkansas State came out on top thanks to some sharp shooting when it mattered, and the direction of one of the best coaches on the rise in the sport, Bryan Hodgson, but that's besides the point.
The real story was how bizarre this bracket is. First off the tournament is in Pensacola,FL and not one team from the entire conference is from the state of Florida. Makes absolutely zero sense. None. Just a very very bizarre situation to take away home games from teams like many other 1 bid leagues and instead send them to Florida of all places. I guess maybe they think it will be easier to deal with season ending losses if you are in sunshine.
The next issue and maybe the funnier of the two is just how absurd this bracket is. The staggered byes is insane. Do you realize the 11,12 or 13,14 seed has to win SEVEN games in SEVEN DAYS ?!?!??!? Absolutely the most ridiculous thing we will see in all of Championship Week and we see a ton of crazy shit in Championship Week. Now listen, part of me respects this (to a small degree) because you want to skew the bracket to have the best teams represent your conference in the NCAA Tournament so they can potentially win a game and help you out in the big picture, and James Madison did that last year. But the other part of me has to know which sick individual designed this bracket which looks like a math problem on a fucking mirror.
It should go without saying, this is one of the countless reasons I love this stupid ass sport. Just the damn best.