The Sun Belt Conference was founded on Aug. 4, 1976, primarily as a basketball league. Among the new members, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte appeared to be the early favorite. The 49ers—who would shorten their name to Charlotte in 2000—were coming off a strong 1976 NIT run. That team defeated NC State in the semifinals before falling to Kentucky, 71-67, in the championship game.
All six founding members came from the independent ranks, and all but Jacksonville had winning records in the 1975–76 season. Like the Big East in its first football season, Sun Belt teams played full non-conference schedules, with select matchups counting as conference games.
Charlotte entered the Sun Belt tournament with just three losses—two of them to ranked teams, Wake Forest and Tennessee. The 49ers beat New Orleans to win the conference title and earn an NCAA Tournament berth They upset Michigan to become the first—and still the only—Sun Belt team to reach the Final Four.
𝟏𝟗𝟕𝟕 𝐅𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐋 𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐑#TBT – 43 years ago today (March 26, 1977), the 49ers played Marquette in the Final Four in Atlanta. Cedric “Cornbread” Maxwell scored 17 points and grabbed 12 rebounds, and Lew Massey scored 14 points and grabbed eight rebounds in that game. pic.twitter.com/BSBHNOw18x
— Charlotte Men’s Basketball (@CharlotteMBB) March 26, 2020
Charlotte lost 51–49 to eventual national champion Marquette in the national semifinal and fell to UNLV in the third-place game. Despite the NIT expanding to 16 teams that year, no Sun Belt program received an invitation.
The additions of UAB and VCU gave the Sun Belt Conference a boost in postseason visibility. That momentum started in 1979, when the Sun Belt began sending multiple teams to the NCAA Tournament in eight of the next nine years. Old Dominion and Western Kentucky joined the conference for the 1982–83 season, replacing New Orleans and Georgia State.
UAB reached the Sweet 16 in both 1981 and 1982. The Sun Belt wouldn’t return to the tournament’s second weekend until Western Kentucky advanced in 1993. Western Kentucky remains the last Sun Belt team to reach the Sweet 16, falling to UCLA in the 2008 West Regional semifinal.
The Sun Belt’s first major realignment came in 1991, when five teams—including founding members Charlotte and South Florida—left for other leagues. To fill the gap, the Sun Belt added seven schools from Louisiana and Arkansas, including New Orleans, which returned after 11 years.
These changes marked a decline in the Sun Belt’s national profile. Since 1991, the conference has sent multiple teams to the NCAA Tournament just three times. The most recent occurrence was in 2013, when both teams lost in their opening games.
The Sun Belt launched women’s basketball in 1982–83 with only four teams. Old Dominion mirrored Charlotte’s early success, reaching the Final Four in its debut season before falling to Louisiana Tech in the semifinals. Two years later, Old Dominion captured the Sun Belt’s only national basketball title, defeating Georgia 70–65 to win the 1985 women’s championship. That same season, the conference sent multiple teams to the NCAA women’s tournament for the first time. Western Kentucky also reached the Final Four, losing to Georgia in the semifinals.
She helped lead ODU to a Final Four appearance in 1983 and an NCAA National Championship in 1985. Dixon went on to play for Team USA in the Olympics, Pan American Games and the World Championships. #Empower | #ODUSports pic.twitter.com/o3y1CBTasJ
— ODU Women's Basketball (@ODUWBB) February 27, 2020
Between 1987 and 1990, the Sun Belt regularly sent multiple teams to the tournament. That changed in 1991, when Louisiana Tech joined and quickly became a dominant force alongside Western Kentucky. The two programs regularly contended for the conference title or earned at-large bids during that era.
Since 2001, the Sun Belt has sent multiple teams to the women’s NCAA Tournament only four times. In the most recent case, Little Rock and Middle Tennessee were both eliminated in the first round by double-digit margins. As of 2023, neither program remains in the conference.
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