The first conference tournament bracket is here with the first March Madness games set for next week
Feb 28, 2026 at 1:08 am ET • 2 min read
The first conference tournament bracket for the 2025-26 season is set. The Sun Belt Tournament begins Tuesday with a pair of first-round matchups between teams that will be looking to extend their seasons for another day.
Entering Friday, the final day of the regular season, seven different teams were mathematically alive for at least a share of the SBC championship. Troy captured the Sun Belt title after defeating UL Monroe to earn the No. 1 seed in next week's tournament. Marshall earned the No. 2 seed and the bye into , and despite losing to Georgia Southern. There was a six-way tie (with 11-7 conference records) for second place in the conference standings.
Because of the Sun Belt's tournament format which places the top two seeds in the conference's semifinals, Troy and Marshall will need to win just one game next weekend (March 8) to advance to the Sun Belt Tournament championship game. The tournament gets started Tuesday in Pensacola, Florida, when No. 14 seed UL Monroe will face No. 11 seed Old Dominion before No. 13 seed Georgia State meets No. 12 seed Louisiana.
The Horizon League will get college basketball's postseason underway on Monday with a first-round game between No. 10 seed Cleveland State and No. 11 seed IU Indianapolis.
While the Horizon League will be the first league to get its tournament underway, other leagues will be in action later in the week. Among the leagues that will have first-round games on Wednesday are the ASUN, Big South, Northeast, Ohio Valley and the Summit League and we are just days away from the rest of the conferences to get underway.
Why Miami (Ohio) still hasn't locked up an NCAA Tournament at-large bid despite roaring off to 29-0 start
When conference tournament results roll in, we'll be keeping track of them here as teams begin to claim automatic bids to the NCAA Tournament.
