The Sun Belt Conference’s strategic plan to improve its basketball product and increase the odds of getting one or more at-large bids to the NCAA Tournament has continued to evolve.

One aspect was clear coming out of the league’s annual spring meetings, however. Sun Belt leadership believes scheduling is the key, and is dedicated to getting all 14 schools on board. After failing to have a team finish ranked in the Top 100 of the NET rankings in the 2021-22 season, the SBC had four in the Top 100 in 2022-23.

But the Sun Belt still not only had one NCAA Tournament team, but also only one NIT bid.

“I thought it was embarrassing,” James Madison coach Mark Byington said, “as good a year as we had we couldn’t get a second team in the NIT. That shows how far we are away right now, even though we had a great year with four teams in the Top 100, we’re not as close as we need to be and it’s going to take every league member to jump in.”

Overall, the conference’s NET ranking improved from 17th to 14th and conference champion Louisiana earned a No. 16 seed in the NCAA Tournament after the Sun Belt garnered only a 16-seed the previous year. But Sun Belt Commissioner Keith Gill and the conference’s coaches are continuing to push for more improvement and they are in agreement that the way to continue to increase NET success is to schedule, and win, non-conference games in their home arenas.

“I know Commissioner Gill wants to continue to elevate it and we’ve had a lot of discussions about things we can do, namely getting more home games,” Troy coach Scott Cross said. “I think we all agree can agree that’s the way to do it. Now figuring out the next steps is going to be the tricky part. The coaches in this league are phenomenal and do a great job recruiting and coaching, so the way I look at it, the way we can continue to elevate it is to find a way that every team in the league gets more Division I home games.”

The exact scheduling guidelines to come out of the Sun Belt office aren’t set in stone. Nor is the decision on how to enforce them. But one thing most in the meeting rooms seemed to agree on was the need to play more home games and that it may take penalties and/or incentives to get every school to adhere.

"I think everything that we do, if we create some rules, there's probably going to be some penalties associated with them,” Gill told the Daily News-Record. “And there's an expectation that people follow the rules. There's nothing that's been finalized. We've got basketball strategic planning working groups that are going about their work and trying to identify ways that we can get better at basketball. Non-conference scheduling is certainly a big part of their recommendations, but those things have to work through a process and when they are finalized, certainly we'll let folks know. But I think there's a few more steps that we've got to do to vet those before we can confirm them or say that something is definitely happening.”

Sun Belt teams played an average of 3.7 non-conference games at home against Division I opponents last season with some playing as few as two and only Marshall, with seven, playing more than six.

“This year we’re going to go play in a tournament in the Cayman Islands that has exposure,” Marshall coach Dan D’Antoni said. “We’re playing some Tier 1 teams and that gives you a much better chance of winning than playing them on their home court. We’re playing one game at a place where we get bought. We’re doing it this year, but I’m under the philosophy that if you’re getting bought you know your team hasn’t arrived yet. We’re going to schedule as many home games as we can. That means you have to buy some teams to come in here.”

The overall lack of home games is something coaches are eager to see change.

“One of the things I want to put in place, and I don’t have total support on this, but probably majority support, is putting in stipulations or penalties for teams that go against the protocols we want to do for non-conference,” Byington said. “We had a scheduling guru come to town and I think our NET ranking as a conference was 13 or 14 last year. I asked him, if we all played seven home games non-conference, what do you think it would do? He’s like it would take you from 13 to 11. Take it a step further, if we all played eight home games like the Mountain West, and win more than 60 percent of those Division I games, then we’re legitimately talking about getting two teams in or getting a 10 seed.”

As far as penalties, ideas tossed around in league meetings included fines in the neighborhood of $50,000, withholding NCAA Tournament shares — the Sun Belt got $2 million to distribute thanks to Louisiana’s one March Madness game — or perhaps the most extreme example, disallowing teams from the conference tournament.

Reaching the point where all 14 teams host at least seven Division I opponents isn’t necessarily an expectation for the upcoming season, but more of a goal for the next few years. But there’s a strong reason behind it.

In men’s college basketball, the home team wins nearly 70-percent of the time, a figure that only increases during non-conference play. The Sun Belt also has a goal of increasing its non-conference winning percentage to .600 or better.

Since the NCAA Tournament field expanded to 68 teams, only once has a conference won more than 60-percent of its non-conference games and failed to get more than one team in the NCAA Tournament. That was the MAC in 2019, but conference champion Buffalo earned a No. 6 seed.

“It’s going to take a financial commitment from the very, very top,” Cross said. “It will probably be something that Commissioner Gill decides to do, but I think other conferences have put incentives or penalties if you don’t. That’s probably where the Sun Belt will go. It will probably be small steps over time, but hopefully can all continue to find a way to get more home games. We all know Sun Belt teams are winning 60-plus percent of those home games and that’s the magic number.”

With coaches and the commissioner on the same page, the next step is to convince administration at all 14 schools. Some athletic directors and presidents rely on sending their teams to play one-off road games for a paycheck — often between $60,000 and $90,000 — to help boost the athletic budget.

Convincing administrators to instead pay a lower-level team to visit their home arena isn’t always an easy sell, but proponents say it could pay off down the road in the form of increased NCAA Tournament shares and, eventually, better ticket sales.

In the meantime, those proposed penalties might be more influential.

“That’s probably one way to get more presidents’ attention than anything else,” Byington said. “It’s a commitment, but there’s a reward on the other side of it.”