2020 Sun Belt Conference men's soccer tournament

2020 Sun Belt Conference men's soccer tournament
ClassificationDivision I
Teams4
Matches3
Attendance973
SiteCenter Parc Stadium
Atlanta, Georgia
ChampionsCoastal Carolina (16th title)
Winning coachShaun Docking (11th title)
MVPTor Saunders (Coastal Carolina)
BroadcastESPN+
Sun Belt Conference men's soccer tournament
«2019  2022»
2020 Sun Belt Conference men's fall soccer standings
Conf Overall
Team W   L   T W   L   T
No. 23 Coastal Carolina 5 1 0 6 2 1
Georgia State 4 2 0 9 2 2
Central Arkansas 3 3 0 4 6 2
Georgia Southern 0 6 0 1 9 0
As of March 2, 2021
Rankings from United Soccer Coaches

The 2020 Sun Belt Conference men's soccer tournament was the 26th edition of the Sun Belt Conference Men's Soccer Tournament. The tournament decided the Sun Belt Conference (SBC) champion. The tournament began on November 11 and concluded on November 15, 2020.

Georgia State hosted the tournament, which consisted solely of a semifinal and final round. Coastal Carolina successfully defended their SBC Tournament championship, defeating Georgia State in penalties in the final.

The Sun Belt shuttered its men's soccer league after all of its members moved the sport to other conferences by the end of the 2020–21 school year. The conference had lost one men's soccer team before the season when full conference member Appalachian State dropped men's soccer in May 2020, citing financial impacts from COVID-19.[1] That July saw associate member Howard announce that it would become an associate member of the Northeast Conference in six sports, with men's soccer being one of four sports moving in July 2021.[2] In January 2021 the ASUN Conference announced three schools as incoming full members, including Sun Belt men's soccer associate Central Arkansas.[3] The following month saw full Sun Belt member Coastal Carolina announce that it would become a single-sport member of Conference USA, joining another in-state associate member in South Carolina.[4] This left Georgia Southern and Georgia State, both full Sun Belt members, as the conference's only remaining men's soccer programs, and those two schools announced they would move that sport to the Mid-American Conference in late May 2021.[5]

However, following a major conference realignment that brought three new men's soccer schools (James Madison, Marshall, and Old Dominion) to the conference, SBC commissioner Keith Gill announced on November 1, 2021 that men's soccer would be reinstated no later than 2023.[6] With all three schools joining in 2022 instead of the originally intended 2023 timeline, the SBC announced on April 6, 2022 that men's soccer would instead return in 2022.[7]

  1. ^ "App State drops men's soccer and two other men's programs". Soccer America. May 26, 2020. Retrieved May 26, 2020.
  2. ^ "Six Howard Athletics Programs Join the Northeast Conference as Associate Members" (Press release). Howard Bison. July 6, 2020. Retrieved April 15, 2021.
  3. ^ "ASUN Conference Announces Three New Institutions; Adds Football as 20th Sport" (Press release). ASUN Conference. January 29, 2021. Retrieved April 15, 2021.
  4. ^ "Coastal Carolina Added as Men's Soccer Member" (Press release). Conference USA. February 25, 2021. Retrieved April 15, 2021.
  5. ^ "Georgia Southern, Georgia State Added As Affiliate Members in Men's Soccer" (Press release). Mid-American Conference. May 21, 2021. Retrieved May 27, 2021.
  6. ^ Traylor, Grant (November 1, 2021). "Sun Belt confirms men's soccer being reinstated". The Herald-Dispatch. Huntington, WV. Retrieved November 2, 2021.
  7. ^ "Sun Belt Conference Announces Return of Men's Soccer This Fall" (Press release). Sun Belt Conference. April 6, 2022. Retrieved April 7, 2022.