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Plenty to be gained in season finale for men's basketball
GS Basketball
Georgia Southern's Isaiah Crawley, center, muscles his way through multiple Coastal Carolina defenders during a Feb. 13 game at Hanner Fieldhouse.

With 19 of 20 scheduled Sun Belt Conference games in the books, plenty has been settled. But for the Georgia Southern men’s team, there are some big factors concerning next week’s conference tournament that are still up in the air.


It will require some scoreboard watching, but the Eagles will finally know their exact place in the postseason after tonight’s 7 p.m. home game against Arkansas State.

Tonight's game — and any following it — was on the Eagles' mind even after its huge win at Georgia State last week. 


“We know that there are bigger games left to play,” GS coach Mark Byington said following the win in Atlanta. “We've got to move on and I think this team is trending in the right direction.”


As many seeding scenarios as there are still in play, it might be more confusing just to understand the structure of the Sun Belt tournament.


Of the 12 conference teams, only the top 10 will qualify for the tournament. Seeds 7-10 will compete in a play-in round on Saturday, with No. 7 hosting No. 10 and No. 8 hosting No. 9. Next Monday, the 7/10 winner will travel to No. 5 and the 8/9 winner will head to No. 6. The same process will play out Wednesday with the No. 3 and No. 4 seeds hosting games on their campus. 


The top two seeds avoid that mess and head straight to New Orleans, where the semifinals and championship game will be contested at the Smoothie King Center March 14-15.


Entering tonight’s game, the Eagles can finish anywhere from 3-5 in the final seedings. A win guarantees them of a top-4 seed and a tournament quarterfinal starting point. The worst-case scenario is a loss — combined with wins by South Alabama and Georgia State — that would see the Eagles finish fifth and add another round on to any potential run through the tournament.


Regardless of how the bracket shapes up, the Eagles will enter mid-March with the same goal as always. It has been 28 years since Georgia Southern last made its way into the NCAA tournament and the only way in for any of this year’s Sun Belt teams is by way of a conference tournament victory.


A win tonight will be a great first step to what the Eagles hope will become a marathon march to New Orleans and beyond.