Sun Belt Tourney Preview

At higher seeds
FIRST ROUND
Wednesday, March 4
Game 1: No. 9 Florida International at No. 8 Louisiana-Lafayette
Game 2: No. 13 Florida Atlantic at No. 4 North Texas
Game 3: No. 12 Arkansas State at No. 5 Middle Tennessee
Game 4: No. 11 New Orleans at No. 6 South Alabama
Game 5: No. 10 Louisiana-Monroe at No. 7 Denver

At Summitt Arena
Hot Springs, Ark.
QUARTERFINALS
Sunday, March 8
Game 6: No. 1 Western Kentucky vs. Game 1 winner (1:30 p.m.)
Game 7: Game 2 winner vs. Game 3 winner (4 p.m.)
Game 8: No. 2 Arkansas-Little Rock vs. Game 5 winner (7:30 p.m.)
Game 9: No. 3 Troy vs. Game 4 winner (10 p.m.)

SEMIFINALS
Monday, March 9
Game 10: Game 6 winner vs. Game 7 winner (7:30 p.m.)
Game 11: Game 8 winner vs. Game 9 winner (10 p.m.)

CHAMPIONSHIP
Tuesday, March 10
Game 12: Game 10 winner vs. Game 11 winner (ESPN2, 10 p.m.)


Team to watch: Western Kentucky. The number one seed and the team that made it to the sweet sixteen in the tournament last year is back and ready to play spoiler again!

Player to watch: Nate Rohnert. The Denver Pioneers guard can do it all--score, board, and dish it out. Rohnert averaged 15, 5, 5 during the year.

Upset watch: Troy. With a third place finish in the conference, the Trojans can make things very uneasy for Arkansas Little-Rock and Western Kentucky. They have the scorers that will make things tough for the opposition.

Tourney watch: Coming off of an improbable run in the NCAA tournament last year, I find it hard to believe anyone is going to knock off Western Kentucky. This will be another dangerous team in the field as evidenced by their victory over Louisville earlier this season.