Troy both opened and closed the first half of its Sun Belt Conference basketball tournament semifinal game in juggernaut fashion on Sunday night, sparking a 79-60 victory at the Pensacola (Fla.) Bay Center.

The third-seeded Trojans jumped out to leads of 11-0 and 19-5 in the first 6:39 of the half, then finished on an 18-5 run after the No. 2 Dukes had cut the lead to four. Troy (22-10) led by as many as 23 points in the game, and never by fewer than seven in the second half.

The Trojans now advance to face No. 4 Arkansas State in Monday night’s championship game, with a shot at their first tournament title and NCAA tournament berth in eight years. The Red Wolves (24-9) knocked off No. 1 seed South Alabama 74-71 in Sunday’s other semifinal game.

“It was a really, really gritty game,” said Troy coach Scott Cross, whose team has won five straight games and seven of its last eight. “We won that because our guys were so locked in defensively. … (James Madison is) one of the best offensive teams, but our guys were so locked in. This is one of our best defensive performances, I think, all year. We’re playing some of our toughest, best basketball at the right time, and our guys were really connected today, and I think that was the biggest reason for our success.”

Troy shot 47% as a team, including 54% in the first half. James Madison (20-12) got a game-high 34 points on 12-for-19 shooting from All-Sun Belt guard Mark Freeman, but all the other Dukes combined to go 8-for-43 (19%) from the field.

Jackson Fields, Tayton Conerway and Thomas Dowd accounted for 63 of Troy’s 79 points in the game, with all three cracking the 20-point mark. Conerway — the Sun Belt Player of the Year — scored a team-high 22 points, while Fields had 21 (including five 3-pointers) and Dowd recorded a double-double with 20 points and 11 rebounds (six offensive) and also blocked three shots.

“We don’t know whose night it’s gonna be on any given night,” Cross said. “Jackson was feeling it. We’ve had confidence in him all year long. … He’s a tough matchup on the pick and roll. How do you defend it when you’ve got a guy that can shoot as good as he can?

“And then Thomas Dowd, holy moly … to have 11 rebounds, six offensive rebounds, he’s just an absolute warrior. These guys took 21 shots combined, and they scored 41 points, which that’s about as efficient as you could possibly be.”

Freeman and James Madison did briefly make a game of it midway through the second half, going on a 13-3 run to cut Troy’s lead to 55-46 with 7:39 left. Freeman converted a steal into a breakaway layup, then the Trojans’ Marcus Rigsby was called for an offensive foul.

Freeman then hit a jumper from just inside the 3-point line to pull the Dukes within 55-48. However, Conerway converted both ends of a one-and-one at the 7:06 mark and the Trojans were never seriously threatened again.“I thought especially in the beginning, we all came out just flying around on defense,” Fields said. “It’s easy to have a great game when the rest of your teammates are bringing that energy as well.”

Troy last won the Sun Belt tournament in 2017, when coach Phil Cunningham’s team scored four victories in four days in New Orleans as the No. 6 seed. The Trojans lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament to Duke that season, one of their two appearances in the Field of 64/68 as a Division I program (the other, also a first-round exit, came in 2003 under legendary coach Don Maestri).

Troy split with Arkansas State during the regular season, losing 84-78 at home in January before winning 71-70 in Jonesboro in February. The Trojans and Red Wolves tied for the Sun Belt regular-season title with South Alabama and James Madison, and Cross said he’s counting on another close game Monday night.

“It’s a great matchup,” Cross said. “Both games have been very, very close. They’re a super, super talented basketball team and we’re gonna have to play extremely tough and similar to the way we played tonight. But it should make for a great, great basketball game.

“… This is what we’ve worked for, so there’s no pressure. Our guys just have to go out there and play with the same grit and toughness and togetherness, and we’ll let the chips fall where they may.”

Monday’s Sun Belt championship game tips off at 6 p.m., with television coverage on ESPN2.