Belmont Basketball: Same As It Ever Was
Posted by Ray Curren on December 23rd, 2014Three-game losing streaks don’t bother Rick Byrd much anymore. He’s now in his 29th season in charge of Belmont (the fourth-longest current tenure in Division I men’s basketball) and in a one-bid league like the Ohio Valley Conference (or the Atlantic Sun, previously), he knows that it’s all about the conference season. After all, his Bruins withstood a four-game losing streak at around the same time last year, but still managed to go 14-2 in conference play before being upset by Eastern Kentucky in the OVC Tournament semifinals (not to mention coming seconds away from the NIT Final Four in a loss at Clemson). Add to the fact that Byrd is fairly mild-mannered, especially by the standards of big-time college basketball coaches, and surely he took those defeats in stride. Or not.
Rick Byrd and Belmont will likely be right in the Tourney mix come March. (Getty)
“If you’re competitive, it’s never easy at all to lose,” Byrd said over the weekend. In fact, he actually picked up a rare technical (he says they’re not quite as rare as you might think) in December 11’s Wright State loss, which was the team’s second straight defeat at home. After a sluggish first half on Saturday at Fairfield, Belmont looked more like Belmont in the second half, picking the Stags — which were already 2-0 in the MAAC — apart for 44 second-half points (and 1.33 points per possession) in a 73-61 victory. The Bruins will travel to Butler’s Hinkle Fieldhouse next week for their final non-conference tilt. Although losing is no fun, Byrd did see some positives for his young squad in the losing streak, which played all three games without leading scorer Craig Bradshaw, who returned from an injury against Fairfield. “It does help you understand that you can still be a good basketball team in the end,” Byrd said. “We got beat by two good teams, Evansville and Wright State, Wright State without our starting wing [Taylor Barnette], too. And we played good enough to win that game. Last year, we got beat by South Dakota State by double figures, went to Denver and got beat by 28. This has been a little better performance. VCU was too much for us, but it does help to say, ‘Look, we lost to Denver last year by 28 and we won the league’. But it’s still no fun to lose.”
If you’re reading this, you’re probably well aware of what Belmont has done over the years, but here’s a partial abridged recap: Belmont is one of only six Division I programs to win 26 or more games in each of the last four seasons (Duke, Florida, Syracuse, VCU and Wichita State are the others); the Bruins have won 13 conference titles (six tournament, seven regular season) since 2006, with only Kansas winning more during that span; and only Belmont, Gonzaga, Kansas and Memphis have earned at least six automatic berths to the NCAA Tournament in the past nine years. In a landscape where defense is increasingly king, Belmont has done it mostly as a model of offensive efficiency (they have been among the top 15 nationally in scoring and haven’t finished lower than 52nd in adjusted offensive efficiency over the last four seasons), playing an attractive style that involves simply shooting the ball better than you, and usually with more options.
“I think they had six guys make three or more jump shots from outside 15 feet,” Fairfield coach Sydney Johnson said on Saturday. “That makes them really hard to guard.” Byrd has been in charge at Belmont since 1986, overseeing its rise to an NAIA power all the way to Division I independent and now to NCAA Tournament regular. But the one victory he doesn’t have among his 697 is a victory in the NCAA Tournament, although he came agonizingly close in 2008 with a one-point loss to Duke. This is a young Belmont team, so much so that the Bruins were picked behind Murray State (last year’s CIT champions) in the preseason OVC poll. But freshman Amanze Egekeze from Chicago has fit in nicely in the starting lineup along with the Virginia transfer Barnette, both of whom are left alone outside of 10 feet at your own peril. The Bruins also showed some diversity in its second-half run against Fairfield — when the Stags extended their defense, Belmont attacked the rim, only attempting five three-pointers after halftime.
As always, the best may be yet to come for Byrd’s program. “I think I’ve fiddled around a bit too much so far this season,” he said. “Sometimes, if you put too much in it’s hard for young guys to remember where they’re supposed to be and what they’re supposed to do. We’re a little bit different team this season and I’m just trying to find the way to get the best shots we can get.” Even in an age of advanced analytics and perhaps even more advanced defensive preparation, sometimes it can be just that easy.
