Livescore
Conference tournament season is upon us in college basketball as leagues across the country prepare to settle who will receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. The ASUN Tournament starts Monday while the Horizon League, Patriot League and Sun Belt Tournaments begin Tuesday.
That means the next two weeks will be filled with single-elimination drama leading up to the NCAA Tournament Selection Show on March 12. While the power conferences each figure to send several teams to the Big Dance, the majority of leagues will receive only one or two bids, which makes these next couple weeks critically important to deciding what the NCAA Tournament ultimately looks like.
The first automatic bids to the Big Dance will be punched next Saturday, when the Ohio Valley crowns a champion. Then, on Sunday, the ASUN, Big South and Missouri Valley champions will be decided. As for the big-name leagues, the ACC Tournament tips off first with a March 7 start date before the Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, SEC and Pac-12 get started the following day. In each conference, there figure to be bubble teams fighting for their NCAA Tournament lives.
The ASUN tournament will get this started Monday with first round games played at campus sites. Kennesaw State is the No. 1 seed in the ASUN and will plays its first game Tuesday vs. the winner of Monday’s Queens vs. FGCU first round game. The Owls and Liberty tied for the ASU regular-season title, but Kennesaw State won the tiebreaker by virtue of its victory vs. the Flames earlier this month.
The Sun Belt Tournament is also set and begins Tuesday. A season after finishing 1-17 in Conference USA play, Southern Miss is entering the postseason as the champions of its new conference. The Golden Eagles clinched the Sun Belt crown on Friday night and will be the top seed for the Sun Belt Conference Tournament, which is among four league tournaments getting underway Tuesday. With a 25-6 record, Southern Miss has been one of college basketball’s top turnaround stories of the season but will need three more victories in order to reach the NCAA Tournament for just the second time since 1991.
Keep it locked here over the coming days as we track the conference tournaments and follow which teams have punched their NCAA Tournament tickets.
2023 conference tournament schedules, champions
| Conference | Tournament site | Dates (Final TV) | 2023 Champion |
| AAC | Fort Worth, Texas | March 9-12 (ESPN) | |
| ACC | Greensboro, N.C. | March 7-11 (ESPN) | |
| America East | Campus sites | March 4, 7 & 11 (ESPN2) | |
| Atlantic 10 | Brooklyn, NY | March 7-9, 11-12 (CBSSN) | |
| ASUN | Campus sites | Feb. 27-28, March 2,5 (ESPN2) | |
| Big East | New York | March 8-11 (Fox) | |
| Big Sky | Boise, Idaho | March 4-8 (ESPN2) | |
| Big South | Charlotte, N.C. | March 1, 3-5 (ESPN2) | |
| Big Ten | Chicago | March 8-12 (CBS) | |
| Big 12 | Kansas City | March 8-11 (ESPN) | |
| Big West | Henderson, Nev. | March 7, 9-11 (ESPN2) | |
| Colonial | Washington D.C. | March 3-7 (CBSSN) | |
| Conference USA | Frisco, Texas | March 8-11 (CBSSN) | |
| Horizon League | Indianapolis | Feb. 28, March 2, 6-7 (ESPN) | |
| Ivy League | Princeton, N.J. | March 11-12 (ESPN2) | |
| MAAC | Atlantic City, N.J. | March 7-11 (ESPNU) | |
| MAC | Cleveland | March 9-11 (ESPN2) | |
| MEAC | Norfolk, Va. | March 8-11 (ESPN2) | |
| Missouri Valley | St. Louis | March 2-5 (CBSSN) | |
| Mountain West | Las Vegas | March 8-11 (CBS) | |
| Northeast | Campus sites | March 1, 4 & 7 (ESPN2) | |
| Ohio Valley | Evansville, Ind. | March 1-4 (ESPN2) | |
| Pac-12 | Las Vegas | March 8-11 (ESPN) | |
| Patriot | Campus sites | Feb. 28, March 2,5 & 8 (CBSSN) | |
| SEC | Nashville | March 8-12 (ESPN) | |
| Southern | Asheville, N.C | March 3-6 (ESPN) | |
| Southland | Lake Charles, LA | March 5-8 (ESPN2) | |
| Summit | Sioux Falls, S.D. | March 3-7 (ESPN2) | |
| Sun Belt | Pensacola, Fla. | Feb. 28, March 2, 4 & 6 (ESPN2) | |
| SWAC | Birmingham, Ala. | March 8-11 (ESPNU) | |
| WAC | Las Vegas | March 7, 9-11 (ESPN2) | |
| West Coast | Las Vegas | March 2-4 & 6-7 (ESPN) |
Read the full article here
