Sun Belt basketball: Power Rankings heading into 2017-18

An underrated conference that’s been growing of late in terms of recognition, the Sun Belt has become one of the more fun mid-major conferences around.

Each conference plays twice a week, with the mid-major leagues playing both Saturday and another day of the week. The Sun Belt chooses Mondays, regardless of who else is playing. If you don’t want to watch the College Football Championship in January, there’s a good Sun Belt game probably going on.

Last season wasn’t as dramatic as previous ones, with Texas Arlington, led by player of the year Kevin Hervey, going coast to coast in the conference standings. The chaos happened in the conference tournament, where a number of upsets occurred to create a No. 4 vs No. 6 championship matchup.

Troy went on to win, going to the big dance. Even though they lost, the Trojans of Troy will be back for a repeat performance.

With high-powered offenses and a number of close and exciting finishes has propelled social media to use the hashtag #funbelt when talking about the league.

This upcoming season won’t be as crystal clear as to who’s the favorite in the conference. While the returning player of the year is coming back, so are a number of talented players who will have the chance to take the individual award away from him.

While some teams lost a ton of talent, others lost little to none. Depending on how things go, four or five programs could reasonably win the regular season title. But, as we saw last year, the real fireworks will happen in the conference tournament, where the stakes are never higher.

Here’s a look at how the unpredictable, yet exciting Sun Belt conference will play out.