NEW ORLEANS – For the second time within the final 4 years, the University of South Alabama athletics division has claimed the 2025-26 Vic Bubas Cup, the Sun Belt Conference introduced Tuesday.
South Alabama, a member of the Sun Belt Conference since its inception in 1976, has earned a league-best 17 Vic Bubas Cups.
The Bubas Cup is the Sun Belt’s annual all-sports championship trophy, awarded to the highest athletics division within the convention primarily based on a factors system.
“We are proud to recognize South Alabama for its broad-based athletics excellence during the 2025-26 season,” mentioned Sun Belt Conference Commissioner Keith Gill. “This award is a testament to the dedication of South Alabama’s student-athletes, coaches, athletics department staff and university leadership.”
South Alabama earned 130.5 factors to outpace Arkansas State (124.5) and Southern Miss (120.5). Coastal Carolina (118.5) completed fourth, as App State (112.5) rounded out the top-five within the Bubas Cup standings.
South Alabama, which sponsors 17 of the Sun Belt’s 19 sports activities, gained the Sun Belt softball event crown. The Jaguars earned factors for ending within the high three of seven sports activities together with ladies’s soccer, males’s basketball, ladies’s golf, males’s golf, males’s and girls’s outside observe & area and baseball.
The Vic Bubas Cup is called after the Sun Belt Conference’s first Commissioner. Bubas was appointed the convention’s commissioner on Oct. 6, 1976, and served for 14 years till his retirement in 1990. He led the convention throughout a interval wherein its membership elevated from six to eight members and its sport sponsorship grew from 4 to 10 sports activities. Bubas was a three-time ACC Coach of the Year at Duke within the Nineteen Sixties, taking his group to 3 Final Fours. In 2007, he was inducted into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame. Bubas handed away in April 2018 on the age of 91.
Points for the Bubas Cup are awarded primarily based on regular-season end for sports activities which have a regular-season convention schedule. Points are awarded primarily based on Sun Belt Championship end if that sport doesn’t have a regular-season convention schedule. Points are awarded primarily based on the variety of faculties sponsoring the game. Institutions not sponsoring a sport don’t obtain factors in that sport. Institutions tying for positions break up the mixed factors of their positions.
For sports activities which have each a regular-season schedule and a convention event, one further level shall be awarded to the winner of the convention event, together with a further level for profitable the Sun Belt Conference Football Championship.
For sports activities with divisions, the convention information of all groups are ranked and factors are awarded no matter divisional end. Standings for the sports activities of males’s and girls’s soccer are decided by factors quite than profitable proportion.
Vic Bubas Cup All-Time Winners
1977 – Jacksonville
1978 – South Florida
1979 – South Florida
1980 – South Florida
1981 – South Florida
1982 – South Florida
1983 – Old Dominion
1984 – South Florida
1985 – South Florida
1986 – South Florida
1987 – Western Kentucky
1988 – South Alabama
1989 – South Alabama
1990 – South Florida
1991 – South Alabama
1992 – South Alabama
1993 – South Alabama
1994 – South Alabama
1995 – Arkansas State
1996 – South Alabama
1997 – South Alabama
1998 – Arkansas State
1999 – South Alabama
2000 – South Alabama
2001 – Middle Tennessee
2002 – Western Kentucky
2003 – Western Kentucky
2004 – Middle Tennessee
2005 – Middle Tennessee
2006 – Western Kentucky
2007 – Middle Tennessee
2008 – Western Kentucky
2009 – Middle Tennessee
2010 – Middle Tennessee
2011 – Middle Tennessee
2012 – Middle Tennessee
2013 – Middle Tennessee
2014 – Western Kentucky
2015 – South Alabama
2016 – South Alabama
2017 – South Alabama
2018 – South Alabama
2019 – Texas State
2020 – Arkansas State
2021 – South Alabama
2022 – Texas State
2023 – South Alabama
2024 – Texas State
2025 – Texas State
2026 – South Alabama