Division I college basketball is returning to Pensacola for the next five years.
The Sun Belt Conference announced Thursday that Pensacola will host the SBC Men’s and Women’s Basketball Championships from 2026-2030. It’s a five-year extension, as the league continues its partnership with Pensacola Sports and Visit Pensacola.
The 2025 tournament will be held from March 4-10. All tournament games will be held at the Pensacola Bay Center, while broadcasted live on ESPN+. The women’s championship game will be on ESPNU, and the men’s championship game will be on ESPN2.
The extension makes Pensacola the longest-tenured host of the Sun Belt Basketball Championships, which will now span 10 years. It’s also the most frequent, surpassing New Orleans, which hosted the championships from 2014-2020.
Last season, in the men’s bracket, James Madison University claimed the conference championship over Arkansas State, 91-71, earning an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament in March. On the women’s side, top-seeded Marshall won a dramatic 95-92 overtime game over James Madison under first-year head coach Kim Caldwell, who has since left to become the head coach at Tennessee.
It was the both time either team won the conference championship.
“The Sun Belt Conference is excited to extend our partnership with Pensacola. There is no better place for our basketball championships to thrive and showcase the growth of the Sun Belt Conference,” conference commissioner Keith Gill said in a press release. “Our student-athletes, coaches and fans have established traditions around starting March Madness in Pensacola – a community that has embraced the rising brand of Sun Belt basketball.”
With the Sun Belt Conference returning to Pensacola, that means it’s also a homecoming of sorts for a few conference coaches, as well as a couple players on one team.
Troy University women’s basketball head coach Chanda Rigby, entering her 13th season at the helm of the Trojans, used to coach at Pensacola State from 2005-12, making a pair of NJCAA Final Four appearances her last two seasons. She led Troy to its most recent conference championship in 2021, earning a trip NCAA Tournament.
Last season, Troy women’s basketball got to practice at Pensacola State, and Pensacola Sports had just donated big signs in the gym that bore Rigby’s name on them for the championships.
“It’s like the best of Pensacola is still here. And the places that needed to rise and come up, that’s what happened,” Rigby said after a game during the 2024 tournament. “We’re so thankful to have this tournament here. I think it’s definitely the best place to have a championship tournament. The Sun Belt Conference does a great job. Pensacola Sports, those guys are pros. We’re just thankful to be here.”
University of Louisiana-Lafayette head coach Bob Marlin and assistant coach Neil Hardin, a Pensacola native who went to Woodham High, and eventually attended Pensacola Junior College and the University of West Florida, both coached at PJC (now Pensacola State). The duo won the NJCAA Division I Championship in 1993, and have coached together ever since with a stop at Sam Houston State along the way.
This is Marlin’s 15th season as head coach of the Ragin’ Cajuns.
“Getting to do my job in front of friends and family that normally don’t get to see us play that often, it’s a really cool thing,” Hardin said during the 2024 tournament in a story with the PNJ.
Booker T. Washington alum Janelle Jones is entering her graduate student season at South Alabama. She played in 21 games last season, rebounding from an injury, recording 20 points, nine steals and 21 rebounds. She saw 18 minutes of action in the Jaguars’ loss to Coastal Carolina in the tournament, with one point on a free throw, with a steal and a rebound.
Navarre’s Rachel Leggett is entering her junior year after making 28 starts (30 appearances) for USA last season. Leggett averaged 29.1 minutes a game, with 10.4 points per game (313 total). She also tacked on 34 steals, 172 rebounds and eight blocks.
She started that game against Coastal Carolina, and led the team with 21 points, five rebounds and a steal.
“We are very excited and honored to welcome the Sun Belt Conference to Escambia County for another five years, along with the thousands of fans and visitors the conference brings to our community each year,” Escambia County District 5 Commissioner and Chairman Steven Barry said. “The economic impact to our area over the past five years has been monumental, with more than a $4.3 million economic impact in 2023 alone. I look forward to continuing this positive momentum and further establishing Escambia County and Pensacola as the home of the Sun Belt Conference for many years to come.”
“On behalf of Visit Pensacola, we share in the excitement to have Sun Belt Conference championship basketball played in Pensacola through 2030,” Visit Pensacola President and CEO Darien Schaefer said . “Our team looks forward to hosting the tournament for another five years and having the conference staff, teams, alums, families and friends experience all that Pensacola, Pensacola Beach and Perdido Key have to offer.”
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Sun Belt Conference basketball returning to Pensacola for next five years
