Belmont Close Again

(St. Louis, MO) – Belmont’s basketball season is over, but their team’s future is bright. The Bruins dropped a heart-breaking decision (79-67) to second seeded Virginia on Friday. In a game that was much closer than the final score indicated, Rick Byrd’s team proved they belong on the national stage.

Their dramatic win over Murray State in the Ohio Valley Conference championship catapulted them into the NCAA tournament, only to be confronted by a team that was ranked second nationally most of the season.

Byrd knew his team had a real chance against the ACC’s regular season champ, “I’m certainly proud of our team’s performance, I’m proud of their fight and grit and determination and the plays that they made, and we played a great team and somewhere in the neighborhood of three minutes we had a real, real chance to win that basketball game and just didn’t get it done.”

For a team that won tied Eastern Kentucky for the OVC East Division title, won Music City Madness, won 22 games and took Virginia to the wire, this is a surprisingly young team.

Only guard Reece Chamberlain played significant minutes this season among the seniors that are departing. Spencer Turner, Holden Mobley and Chamberlain leave the program having won 101 games, six OVC titles (regular season & tournament) and have gone to three NCAA tournaments and one NIT.

Six of the top seven scorers return, led by three double digit scorers in junior Craig Bradshaw (18.1) and sophomores Evan Bradds (14.3) and Taylor Barnette (10.7).

A hall of fame type coach, a winning tradition and a deep and veteran team returning. The future is bright for the Belmont team, in spite of the sting they feel today.

Do Good

 

Editor’s Note: The OVC is 4-1 in postseason play.