Sun Belt Releases 2020-21 Women's Basketball Preseason Poll
11/5/2020 2:00:00 PM | Women's Basketball
Eagles are picked sixth in the East Division; first year for divisional format for the Sun Belt since 2013
STATESBORO - The Sun Belt Conference released the 2020-21 Women's Basketball Preseason Poll on Wednesday. Georgia Southern has been picked to finish sixth in the East Division according to a vote of the league's coaches.
This is the first year since 2013 that the Sun Belt will play under a divisional format, following last week's release of a new divisional schedule for 2020-21. The Eagles are in the East Division with Troy, who was picked first in the poll: South Alabama, Coastal Carolina, Appalachian State and Georgia State. These are the only schools the Eagles will play during the regular season.
Georgia Southern went 10-20 overall, but 7-11 in Sun Belt play last season in the first year of play under head coach Anita Howard. The seven Sun Belt wins were the second-most conference wins for Georgia Southern since joining the league in 2014.
"It's a strong conference, with a lot of strong teams," Coach Howard said. "And we are in a strong division. We lost six seniors from last year's team, and brought in a lot of new faces. We also have 10 underclassmen. But it's also exciting. The league doesn't know what we're going to bring to the floor this year, and we have nowhere to go but up."
Voting was done before the split into divisions so placings were done based on tally numbers of a 12-team one-division format.
Below is the entire 2020-21 Sun Belt Conference Women's Basketball Preseason Poll.
Women's Basketball 2020-21 Preseason Coaches Poll
East
Troy 140 (9)
South Alabama 112 (1)
Coastal Carolina 83
Appalachian State 56
Georgia State 44
Georgia Southern 41
West
UTA 115 (1)
Louisiana 111 (1)
Little Rock 99
Arkansas State 78
Texas State 37
ULM 20
