When the rubber meets the road, who do you think will be the final four teams that get the bye in the Sun Belt basketball tournament?

According to NET it SHOULD be Louisiana, James Madison, Southern Miss and Marshall.

As of 1-22 it is Marshall, Southern Miss, Louisiana and a three way tie of ULM, Troy and Georgia Southern.

So my friends, when the rubber meets the road, and all the dust settles, who will be the top four teams?

In no particular order, I think it will be Southern Miss, Louisiana, Marshall and Troy

Georgia Southern in the thick of it...

JMU has too far of a hill to climb, and ULM has a nasty schedule this week that could drag them down the ranks.

1) Louisiana
4) JMU
3) Southern Miss.
2) Marshall

“Bracket”

in no particular order + based on muh eyeballs, one of the following will be the conference champ....

mustard buzzards
marsha
ewe-la-la
helen-o-troy

disclaimer: a healthy Alvarez is now going to put y'all's pansies in a tizzy moving forward ... you'll love his hair, too ...

(01-22-2023 11:56 AM)Big Buds Wrote:  1) Louisiana
4) JMU
3) Southern Miss.
2) Marshall

“Bracket”

the 'lionless' is too small ... if ya have the horses, ya play man perimeter and force 'em to come inside ... leave 'em open outside, and they'll torch ya...

they can't hang with the top four unless the refs go foul crazy...

Unfortunately, I think what's much more likely is we'll get a random team like Georgia Southern to win the conference....

Whoever's hot....

(01-22-2023 12:11 PM)rileylives Wrote:  Unfortunately, I think what's much more likely is we'll get a random team like Georgia Southern to win the conference....

Whoever's hot....

the 'disclaimer' is always the 'outlet pass' for the contrarian ...

Still far too much basketball to be played for me to predict the order but I would say

Marshall
Southern Miss
Troy
ULL

JMU could certainly jump up into that group as well if they can get a little better consistency.

ULM is going to falter down the stretch. It's not a question of "if" but "when". There is almost zero chance that we can keep playing 7 and have the legs to finish. My only hope is that we can do enough to stay in the top half of the conference. We've already exceeded any expectations I had for this season so I'll try not to lose my **** as the season turns south. Yesterday you could tell they were wearing down when they started standing around more, throwing up bad shots, and missing rebounds. I think Keith is seeing that because the bench got more minutes yesterday than they have the entire rest of the season combined. Maybe they'll get enough rest to give Marshall a solid game on Thursday.

(01-22-2023 12:18 PM)WARDAWG93 Wrote:  Still far too much basketball to be played for me to predict the order but I would say

Marshall
Southern Miss
Troy
ULL

JMU could certainly jump up into that group as well if they can get a little better consistency.

ULM is going to falter down the stretch. It's not a question of "if" but "when". There is almost zero chance that we can keep playing 7 and have the legs to finish. My only hope is that we can do enough to stay in the top half of the conference. We've already exceeded any expectations I had for this season so I'll try not to lose my **** as the season turns south. Yesterday you could tell they were wearing down when they started standing around more, throwing up bad shots, and missing rebounds. I think Keith is seeing that because the bench got more minutes yesterday than they have the entire rest of the season combined. Maybe they'll get enough rest to give Marshall a solid game on Thursday.

you nailed it ... a lot of games left ... we just got a guard off the IR ... depth is going to play large down the stretch ... any injury to any top squad could become a 'crippler'...

(01-22-2023 12:18 PM)WARDAWG93 Wrote:  Still far too much basketball to be played for me to predict the order but I would say

Marshall
Southern Miss
Troy
ULL

JMU could certainly jump up into that group as well if they can get a little better consistency.

ULM is going to falter down the stretch. It's not a question of "if" but "when". There is almost zero chance that we can keep playing 7 and have the legs to finish. My only hope is that we can do enough to stay in the top half of the conference. We've already exceeded any expectations I had for this season so I'll try not to lose my **** as the season turns south. Yesterday you could tell they were wearing down when they started standing around more, throwing up bad shots, and missing rebounds. I think Keith is seeing that because the bench got more minutes yesterday than they have the entire rest of the season combined. Maybe they'll get enough rest to give Marshall a solid game on Thursday.

Let me give you some hope, Marshall doesn't run a very deep bench either, in fact I believe they said on the broadcast yesterday we currently have the number one two and three minutes logged players in the entire conference.

It is feasibly possible to run 7 deep if they can stay healthy, one of the reasons we faltered some yesterday was our center Handlogten is still recovering from the flu.... Yet still played limited minutes.

(01-22-2023 12:48 PM)rileylives Wrote:  

(01-22-2023 12:18 PM)WARDAWG93 Wrote:  Still far too much basketball to be played for me to predict the order but I would say

Marshall
Southern Miss
Troy
ULL

JMU could certainly jump up into that group as well if they can get a little better consistency.

ULM is going to falter down the stretch. It's not a question of "if" but "when". There is almost zero chance that we can keep playing 7 and have the legs to finish. My only hope is that we can do enough to stay in the top half of the conference. We've already exceeded any expectations I had for this season so I'll try not to lose my **** as the season turns south. Yesterday you could tell they were wearing down when they started standing around more, throwing up bad shots, and missing rebounds. I think Keith is seeing that because the bench got more minutes yesterday than they have the entire rest of the season combined. Maybe they'll get enough rest to give Marshall a solid game on Thursday.

Let me give you some hope, Marshall doesn't run a very deep bench either, in fact I believe they said on the broadcast yesterday we currently have the number one two and three minutes logged players in the entire conference.

It is feasibly possible to run 7 deep if they can stay healthy, one of the reasons we faltered some yesterday was our center Handlogten is still recovering from the flu.... Yet still played limited minutes.

There's one big difference. Your guys have more talent.

(01-22-2023 12:50 PM)WARDAWG93 Wrote:  

(01-22-2023 12:48 PM)rileylives Wrote:  

(01-22-2023 12:18 PM)WARDAWG93 Wrote:  Still far too much basketball to be played for me to predict the order but I would say

Marshall
Southern Miss
Troy
ULL

JMU could certainly jump up into that group as well if they can get a little better consistency.

ULM is going to falter down the stretch. It's not a question of "if" but "when". There is almost zero chance that we can keep playing 7 and have the legs to finish. My only hope is that we can do enough to stay in the top half of the conference. We've already exceeded any expectations I had for this season so I'll try not to lose my **** as the season turns south. Yesterday you could tell they were wearing down when they started standing around more, throwing up bad shots, and missing rebounds. I think Keith is seeing that because the bench got more minutes yesterday than they have the entire rest of the season combined. Maybe they'll get enough rest to give Marshall a solid game on Thursday.

Let me give you some hope, Marshall doesn't run a very deep bench either, in fact I believe they said on the broadcast yesterday we currently have the number one two and three minutes logged players in the entire conference.

It is feasibly possible to run 7 deep if they can stay healthy, one of the reasons we faltered some yesterday was our center Handlogten is still recovering from the flu.... Yet still played limited minutes.

There's one big difference. Your guys have more talent.

Coaching matters too, and it looks like your team is buying into whatever system you're running.

(01-22-2023 12:48 PM)rileylives Wrote:  

(01-22-2023 12:18 PM)WARDAWG93 Wrote:  Still far too much basketball to be played for me to predict the order but I would say

Marshall
Southern Miss
Troy
ULL

JMU could certainly jump up into that group as well if they can get a little better consistency.

ULM is going to falter down the stretch. It's not a question of "if" but "when". There is almost zero chance that we can keep playing 7 and have the legs to finish. My only hope is that we can do enough to stay in the top half of the conference. We've already exceeded any expectations I had for this season so I'll try not to lose my **** as the season turns south. Yesterday you could tell they were wearing down when they started standing around more, throwing up bad shots, and missing rebounds. I think Keith is seeing that because the bench got more minutes yesterday than they have the entire rest of the season combined. Maybe they'll get enough rest to give Marshall a solid game on Thursday.

Let me give you some hope, Marshall doesn't run a very deep bench either, in fact I believe they said on the broadcast yesterday we currently have the number one two and three minutes logged players in the entire conference.

It is feasibly possible to run 7 deep if they can stay healthy, one of the reasons we faltered some yesterday was our center Handlogten is still recovering from the flu.... Yet still played limited minutes.

getting Alvarez back was a game changer for southern miss ... yesterday, we only had one guy play over 30 mins .... yeah, we're now at 8-9 deep in 'prevent D' when the refs go foul crazy or not...

y'all are in trouble, gals ...

Don't sleep on App St. Just sayin'.

Very hypothetical here but we have three teams with 4 losses. Assuming one of those teams won out and then lost a game in the conference tournament, I’d assume we may get two teams in the with a team that didn’t win the tournament only having 5 losses. Could any of those three teams still make it without winning the tournament if they suffer another regular season loss? Two more regular season losses? What is that threshold? UNT had 7 last year and didn’t make it so I’d imagine the answer is either one more regular season loss or none. Thoughts?

(01-22-2023 02:03 PM)High Country Student Wrote:  Very hypothetical here but we have three teams with 4 losses. Assuming one of those teams won out and then lost a game in the conference tournament, I’d assume we may get two teams in the with a team that didn’t win the tournament only having 5 losses. Could any of those three teams still make it without winning the tournament if they suffer another regular season loss? Two more regular season losses? What is that threshold? UNT had 7 last year and didn’t make it so I’d imagine the answer is either one more regular season loss or none. Thoughts?

No, not this year.

Southern Miss does have the best resume, but even then unlikely.

(01-22-2023 02:03 PM)High Country Student Wrote:  Very hypothetical here but we have three teams with 4 losses. Assuming one of those teams won out and then lost a game in the conference tournament, I’d assume we may get two teams in the with a team that didn’t win the tournament only having 5 losses. Could any of those three teams still make it without winning the tournament if they suffer another regular season loss? Two more regular season losses? What is that threshold? UNT had 7 last year and didn’t make it so I’d imagine the answer is either one more regular season loss or none. Thoughts?

If they have 5 total losses and lose the championship game maybe. I think only USM in that case and only if Vanderbilt becomes a quad 1 win. Which they are about 10 spots away from being right now giving USM 2 total quad 1 wins. No other team has the quad 1 wins needed to get into the tourney.

NCAA has stated that having quad 1 wins and more than one is pretty much the biggest criteria for getting into the tourney. 0 quad 1 wins certainly wont cut it.

I doubt USM wins out though and even if we do I don't know if we would get in.

Maybe Sun Belt could get a couple of teams in the NIT and build off that though.

Not us.

Sent from my SM-F936U using Tapatalk

I sure hope we can get in there, the opening is getting narrower though and when the tournament rolls around we might really be kicking ourselves for those App State and TXST performances. I think Southern Miss and Marshall are very likely to take two of those spots at this point and obviously Louisiana is in good shape to take another.

I'll take the easy way out and pick the current top three to hold on to three of the top four seeds. Then I'll take the optimistic route and say JMU will get the other double bye, but it's a tough call.

I'll pick:
1. Southern Miss
2. Marshall
3. JMU
4. Louisiana

Edit: I'll throw in a WBB prediction while I'm at it.
1. JMU
2. Troy
3. Georgia Southern
4. Southern Miss

(01-22-2023 02:08 PM)rileylives Wrote:  

(01-22-2023 02:03 PM)High Country Student Wrote:  Very hypothetical here but we have three teams with 4 losses. Assuming one of those teams won out and then lost a game in the conference tournament, I’d assume we may get two teams in the with a team that didn’t win the tournament only having 5 losses. Could any of those three teams still make it without winning the tournament if they suffer another regular season loss? Two more regular season losses? What is that threshold? UNT had 7 last year and didn’t make it so I’d imagine the answer is either one more regular season loss or none. Thoughts?

No, not this year.

Southern Miss does have the best resume, but even then unlikely.

So a 29-5 Marshall, Southern Miss or UL team that lose the tournament championship game doesn’t make the NCAA tournament?