Once approved by the UT-Board of Regents, which has come this week the Mavericks will join the league in July 2013.
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| UT-Arlington new College Park Center |
The Sun Belt Conference
announced the addition of the University of Texas at Arlington today, giving
the SBC 12 schools 10 of which play football. Texas-Arlington will be a part of
the Western Athletic Conference during the 2012-13 athletic season for only one
year.
The Sun Belt Conference’s new alignment will
come into effect July 1, 2013. Texas-Arlington sits 30 miles west of Dallas,
has 21,000 students and currently competes in the Southland Conference. Jim
Baker is the school’s new athletic director, and UTA also has a new basketball
and volleyball facility, College Park Center.
The Mavericks men’s
basketball team made the NCAA tournament in 2008, the women’s team advanced
there in 2005 and 2007 and the volleyball team made it to the NCAA’s Final Four
in 1989. UT-Arlington is the second program to depart the failing WAC for the
Sun Belt
Conference Commissioner
Karl Benson was part of the WAC expansion in adding UT-Arlington and Texas
State to the Western Atlantic Conference league, now he has made his third
addition to the Sun Belt as the newly installed commissioner.
UT-Arlington will
compete in the West Division of the SBC.
