Sunbelt 2018/19 Hoops Hunches

1) Georgia Southern Eagles: My favorite named player , #TookieBrown , will keep the Eagles near the top
2) Georgia State Panthers: D’Marcus Simonds is the main man.
3) Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns hung with Kansas and beat Tulane early this season
4) Appalachian State Mountaineers- Justin Forrest 19.2ppg and crew have weathered a tough OOC schedule.
5) Troy Trojans: Varnado has been solid.
6) UL Monroe Warhawks: Travis Munnings has been decent but will need some help.
7) Coastal Carolina Chanticleers: Cuthbertson 20.4 PPG
8) South Alabama Jaguars needs O.
9) Texas State Bobcats:  Nijai Pearson is the player to watch.
10) Arkansas State Red Wolves: Rough  out of conference start except for Ty Cockfield 21.1ppg
11) UT Arlington Mavericks- Rebuilding
12) Little Rock Trojans- Good luck to Coach Darrell Walker, a former NBA player, in finding some O.

jan 8, 2019

 Texas St held of Georgia Southern 73-70 to open league play and hung tight in a 73-69 loss to conference leader Georgia St.

jan13, 2019

 Tre Nottingham and Nijal Pearson scored 16 points apiece and #TXST (14-3, 3-1 Sun Belt) defeated #appst. It may be time to get join the Bobcats' pack.  GST, UTA, ARLR, Troy, and ULL also won yesterday.

jan 18, 2019

Texas St (15-3 4-1), my pre-season  sunbelt -9th team , blew by ARLR LAST NIGHT as Tre Nottingham scored 24 points and Nijal Pearson added 19 . Other winners: UTA, GAST, and Georgia Southern

jan 23, 2019

Texas State (5-1) Nijal Pearson had 29 points and 11 rebounds and TXST went on 30-0 run to beat Ark St 77-64 on Jan 19. Varnado's 3-pointer  with 1.7 seconds on the clock gave Troy the victory over  Georgia State (5-1)
feb 1, 2019
 Zac Cuthbertson had 29 points and Devante Jones scored 25 in Coastal Carolina.'s win over ULM.
Tyrell Johnson scored 20 points in 16 minutes for App St in its 104-77 romp over ULL.

Feb 3

It's getting crowded at the top of the Sunbelt heap. 

Georgia State  (7-2) D'Marcus Simonds scored 29 points in a win over Georgia Southern

Texas State (6-3) #BrianWarren scored  30 points in a 83-77 OT win over UT Arlington(6-3)

 Coastal Carolina (6-3) #ZacCuthbertson scored 24 points in a win over ULL

Feb 9
Good Friday night for the Louisiana schools: ULM beat Georgia Southern and ULL beat Georgia St

Feb 10

Texas St remains tied for first with UTA for first- he!! of a season. NPearson scored 17 points  for TXST in the win over CCU remaining tied with UTA  beat appst.
Feb 16
Both Georgia schools got big Friday night Sunbelt wins:  Malik Benlevi scored  26 points as Georgia St defeated South Alabama 90-81,and Tookie Brown and Isaiah Crawley scored 16 points apiece as GA Southern rolled over South Bama to a 76-51. TXSt 9-3, GA St 9-4, UTA 8-4, GS 8-5

feb 22

TX St fell to ULM(7-6)  which allowed Georgia St , a winner over AppSt (4-9) ,to move into a tie for first with them at 10-4. Tookie Brown had 17 for  Georgia Southern(9-5) in its win over CCU (6-7). UTA(8-6) lost to ULL (7-6)

feb 24

Brian Warren scored  33 points for TXST(11-4) in its OT win over ULM and took sole possession of first place when  Ga St(10-5) lost to Coastal Carolina. Ga Southern (10-5) get 28 points for Tookie Brown in its win over AppSt.

Mar 2

TXST(12-4) hasn't folded  and beat Troy to stay one game ahead of Ga St (10-5), a winner over Ark St thursday night  in the Sunbelt race. UTA(10-6) beat South Bama. GA Southern (11-5) was idle.

March 9

Two intrastate games , GA St/Georgia Southern and UTA/TXSt , will determine the regular season Sunbelt winner. UTA is 11-6, the other three teams are 12-5. TXSt had a bad loss to South Bama last week buthas had a he!! of a surprising season.

 March 10

 Kane Williams scored a career-high 23 points helping Ga Southern beat Ga St to clinch the Sunbelt title because TXST lost to UTA

march 13

Nice second half from South Bama in a rd1 win over Ark St  ULM knocked off App St. Troy and Ark LR didn't qualify, and the top four teams get double byes.

March 15

 South Bama is shaking up the Sunbelt T. Rodrick Sikes made one of two free throws with four seconds left to give USA a 70-69 win over ULL. Michael Ertel had 20 points as Louisiana-Monroe crushed Coastal Carolina 80-50.

March 16

TXST halted South Bama's Cinderella move with 79-67 win while Georgia Southern beat ULM. TXST plays GA St and GA Southern faces UTA today.

March 17

Malik Benlevi tallied 15 points and 10 rebounds to lead Georgia State to a 59-46 win over Texas St who scored only fifteen points in the first half. Brian Warren scored 21 points as Texas-Arlington beat Georgia Southern 67-58 and prevented all Georgia SunbeltT final.

March 26,2019

 I thought he was Georgia St lifer: Coach  Ron Hunter, fresh off a dance loss to Houston on Friday in, took the #Tulane (AAC) opening.

April 1, 2019

#chrisbeard , the Texas Tech HC , is big news these days. It wasn't long ago he had Arkansas -Little Rock fans ecstatic when they beat Purdue in rd1 of the 2016 Dance then fell to Iowa St in rd2

april 7

  #PhilCunningham took #troy to the dance in 2017 and now he's out. Wow!  They hired  Scott Cross, who some success at UTA through the 2017-18 season.
App State hired  Dustin Kerns , who led Presbyterian (Big South) to  solid 20-16 season and a CTI  invitation after a weak 11- 21  record in 2017-18. It's not the greatest resume.

april 15

 Georgia State hired Tennessee assistant Rob Lanier, a longtime assistant for Rick Barnes at Texas and Tennessee, as it's new HC. He was the HC at Sienna (MAAC) from 2001-05.

Cincy, MTSU, Tookie, and more

AAC- #Cincy (17-2, 7-0) played solid D in it's won over #tulane which kept them one game ahead of #smu and #tulsa
CUSA: #MTSU rolled #fau to reman undefeated in CUSA  play whle #marshall  with solid performances from Elmore and Brownng beat #wku to stay in the race. #fiu won it's first conference game this season.
MAC: #ohio hung against #niu behind Simmons 23 points to not fall further behind akron. Rest of the league  pursued parity.
MWC:  #boise moved back into a tie for first with #nevada with a win over #sjsu and Nevada's loss to #fresno. Watch out out the surging #newmexicolobos, who defeated #wyoming with #elijahbrown scoring 33.
SunBelt: #tookieBrown leads Georgia Southern (13-6, 6-0) past Appalachian State, 92-88 and remains  two games ahead of four other schools . #coastalcarolina #georgiasouthern -key SunBelt Jan 23 matchup Can CCU stop Tookie?

Jan 24,2017

#tookiebrown (23 points) and Ga Southern remain undefeated in SunBelt play . GAS 91 CCU 80

Jan 25

MAC: Akron stretched it's lead to three games over Ohio on the East with a 90-80 win over #wmu. West is wide open
MWC: What's wrong with #sdst who lost to AFA? How about those Lobos who arehanging right behind Boise and Nevada in the conference race. New Mexico beats Utah State 74-61 for 4th straight win Elijah Brown scored 24 points.
AAC: #dunleavy may want to go back to broadcasting. #tulane lost to Whouston and fell to 1-7 in conference play.

Jan 26

Race tightens in the MWC: D. J. Fenner scored 21 points and Marcus Marshall added another 18 as #Nevada beat Boise State 76-57 and sits alone atop the MWC.
#Wyoming weathers UNLV comeback, hangs on to win 66-65
Clavell has 23 with 11 boardsfor Colorado St in awin over San Jose St
Nevada 6-2
New Mexico 6-3
Fresno State 5-3
Boise State 5-3
Colorado State 5-3

Wyoming 4-4

Jan 27

Louisiana Tech played the final six minutes with four players and outscored #UAB 20-16 over the final six minutes but lost 79-70. In CUSA games w/o brawls. #mtsu beat #usm and is 8-0 in conference play.
Another great name, #PancakeThomas, scored 25 points in #wku win over UTEP.
Middle Tennessee 8-0
Louisiana Tech 6-2
UAB 6-2

Marshall 6-2

Jan 28

SunBelt: #tookiebrown scored 23 but South Bama handed his Georgia Southern squad its first SunBelt loss. #uta , georgia st, and ark st won to move one game closer to GAS. #texasst edged #ccu and moved into third place
CUSA: #mtsu beat La tech to maintain a two game conference lead. #herd got spanked at home
by #utep
AAC: #tulsa made a late run to beat #ucf and remain 2GB of Cincy
MWC: Oliver led Nevada past New Mexico 82-65 to remain one game ahead of Boise St and
Colorado St who won their games.
MAC: #akron needed late free throws from #isaihwashington to hold off Buffalo and remain the sole
undefeated team in MAC play.

Jan 31

Three undefeated teams  #cincy, #mtsu, #akron , in conference play. Who will hand them a first conferece loss?
#Cincy survives at #Tulsa tomorrow but could lose at #SMU on Feb 12
#akron has a tough one at #emu on Feb 10
#mtsu  has a tough one at a rapidly improving #wku squad

Feb 1

#akron struggled against #NIU but remains undefeated in MAC play as Antino Jackson and Isaiah Johnson combined to score 31 of their 43 points in the second half . #ohio lost to #wmu and fell another game behind akron in the East.

Feb 2

Props to Cincy who's 9-0 in AAC play.#caupain was stellar in the final minute win over Tulsa. #smu beat #ecu to remain one game behind Cincy.

Feb 3

#mtsu goes to 10-0 in CUSA play with another solid game from #JaCoreyWilliams  17 points, 11 rebounds in the 69-59 win over #utsa