The tournament was originally held from 1950–53, when the SoCon was a large conference composed of several small schools and several large schools, the latter of which would form the Atlantic Coast Conference after the 1953 season. The event was re-established in 1984 and has been held every year since. Defending champion Western Carolina has claimed ten championships, the most of any school, with The Citadel close behind at eight tournament wins. Furman is the only other school current school with multiple championships, having won two. East Tennessee State and VMI have never won a title, although they both returned to the conference in 2015 after over ten years in other conferences. Mercer claimed the conference championship in its first ever appearance in 2015.
The tournament was played in Greenville, which had hosted five of the previous nine events.[3]
Seeding and format
All nine teams participated in the tournament, with the bottom two seeds playing a single-elimination play-in round. The remaining teams were then divided into two brackets and played double-elimination tournaments.[4]