The Troy Trojans have made the NCAA Tournament in back-to-back seasons for the first time in program history, punching their ticket to the big dance after defeating Georgia Southern in the Sun Belt Tournament title game on Monday.

After winning the conference’s regular season title, Troy earned the top seed in the tournament, which in the Sun Belt means a bye directly into the semifinals.

After defeating Southern Miss there, it was Georgia Southern playing their sixth game in six days following a tremendous run, but ultimately, the Eagles ran out of gas and fell to Troy 77-61.

“Kudos to Georgia Southern, it was amazing they were playing a sixth game in six days, but every time you looked on social media, everyone wanted them to win and everyone thought they were gonna win,” said Trojans star Thomas Dowd. “I didn’t see anyone talking about us. We won the regular season championship. We were the best team in the league all year and we felt kinda disrespected and having that chip on our shoulder throughout the whole game really fueled all of us.”

Troy head coach Scott Cross now reaches his third ever NCAA Tournament, while it will be the fourth appearance in Trojan program history.

Last year, they were handled by Kentucky in the first round with relative ease, and now Troy will gear up once again to try to bring an upset back to the state of Alabama during March Madness.