American South Conference

American South Conference

Association	NCAA
Founded	1987
Ceased	1991
Commissioner	Craig Thompson
Division	Division I
No. of teams	7
Headquarters	Metairie, Louisiana
Locations

The American South Conference was an NCAA Division I athletic conference that existed from 1987–88 to 1990–91. The charter members were Arkansas State University, Lamar University, Louisiana Tech University, the University of New Orleans, the University of Southwestern Louisiana (now known as the University of Louisiana at Lafayette) and the University of Texas–Pan American (now merged into the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley). The University of Central Florida (UCF) became the only expansion school during the conference's final academic season before the conference merged with the Sun Belt Conference. The Sun Belt, which was losing all but three members, merged with the American South conference.^[1] The combined conference retained the name of the older Sun Belt Conference. Craig Thompson, the American South's first and only commissioner, became commissioner of the merged Sun Belt. After serving as Sun Belt commissioner for eight years, he became commissioner of the newly formed Mountain West Conference in 1998.^[2]

In its brief existence, the American South was home to the 1988 NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Champion in Louisiana Tech, and also had two men's basketball teams earn NCAA at-large berths, Louisiana Tech in 1989 (defeated LaSalle in NCAA 1st Round) and New Orleans in 1991. Lamar's women's basketball team advanced to the NCAA round of eight in 1991 defeating Texas, LSU, and Arkansas before losing to tournament finalist Virginia.