Classification Division I | Teams 10 | |
Site Barton Coliseum
Little Rock, AR Champions South Alabama (2nd title) Winning coach Bill Musselman (1st title) MVP Rusty Yoder (South Alabama) | ||
The 1997 Sun Belt Conference Men's Basketball Tournament was held February 28–March 4 at Barton Coliseum in Little Rock, Arkansas.
South Alabama defeated Louisiana Tech in the championship game, 44–43, to win their second Sun Belt men's basketball tournament.
The Jaguars, in turn, received an automatic bid to the 1997 NCAA Tournament. No other Sun Belt members were invited to the tournament.
Format
No teams left or joined the Sun Belt before the season, leaving conference membership fixed at ten teams.
All teams participated in the tournament, maintaining its ten-team format. With all teams seeded based on regular-season conference records, the top six teams were all placed directly into the quarterfinal round while the four lowest-seeded teams were placed into the preliminary first round.