Belmont finally won a Tourney game. Can it finally spring the upset we’ve waited on?
It took eight tries, but the Belmont Bruins, perennially America’s favorite No. 15 seed, finally won an NCAA Tournament game.
A loss would’ve tied Belmont for second most appearances in the Tournament without a win. Instead, the No. 11-seed Bruins will have a shot to finally spring the upset prognosticators have been predicting for years and years.
So where did this longstanding fascination with Belmont come from? It mostly started all the way back in 2008, when the Bruins played in the Tournament for the third straight year — and the third time ever.
Belmont was a No. 15 seed in each of the previous two years only to get throttled by the UCLA Bruins and Georgetown Hoyas.
In 2008, Belmont got another shot as a No. 15 seed and took the No. 2-seed Duke Blue Devils to the wire. Belmont actually led with 13 seconds left until former Duke wing Gerald Henderson hit a go-ahead jumper to avoid the monumental upset.
Belmont has been to the Tournament five times since and now it had national respect. Belmont won 30 games in 2011 and got a No. 11 seed.
It got a No. 14 seed in 2012, then a No. 11 seed in 2013 after it joined the Ohio Valley Conference. In 2015, Belmont was back to its old place as a No. 15 seed and gave the No. 2-seed Virginia Cavaliers a scare.
Belmont has always been a nice story of program-building, though.
It made the move from the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) to Division I in 1996 and let coach Rick Byrd, already a legend from his NAIA days at Belmont, build the team up. An 800-game winner, Byrd finally got his first Tournament win Tuesday.
This is almost certainly his best team yet. Belmont got one of the final spots in the field of 68 as an at-large team for the first time and pretty much handled the No. 11-seed Temple Owls on the way to an 81-70 win in the First Four in Dayton, Ohio.
Belmont has a Senior All-American with Dylan Windler and won even though the wing only made two shots.
If Belmont is finally going to spring the upset people have been waiting on, Windler will have to be better when Belmont faces the No. 6-seed Maryland Terrapins on Thursday.