Coach Tony Cross named A-Sun Coach of the Year
On the heels of Belmont’s women’s basketball team’s second Atlantic Sun Regular Season title in three years, two players and Head Coach Tony Cross were honored in the postseason by the conference as announced on Tuesday. Freshmen Alysha Clark (Mt. Juliet, Tenn.) and Jessica Bobbitt (Trenton, Tenn.) were named to the All-Freshman Team. Clark, who was the unanimous Freshman of the Year selection, was tabbed Player of the Year and received All-Conference First Team honors. Cross was named Coach of the Year, the first time he has received the honor since the program joined the A-Sun in 2001.
Freshman Phenom Clark Leads A-Sun All-Conference Team
Team On A Mission
Belmont University’s Paul Chenoweth reflects on a different aspect of the Bruins men’s basketball team as they head to the NCAA tournament: “Their achievements in the classroom, on the court, and in the real world are a true reflection of Coach Rick Byrd, his staff, and a commitment to Belmont’s Mission. Several times in yesterday’s game, the Belmont team playing on the court was full of last year’s Sports Evangelism Team who traveled to Ukraine. I cannot begin to describe the depth of caring, compassion, and spirit that Deb & I witnessed personally during that trip…the passion and intensity of their play yesterday might give you some idea of how these men live all aspects of their lives.” Pictured: Belmont Bruins basketball player Justin Hare visits an orphanage in Ukraine. Photo by Paul Chenoweth.
Belmont Drummer Entertains the Troops
The Greenfield, Ind., Daily Reporter profiles Tyler Oban, a Belmont University entrepreneurship student who spent much of January as a touring musician entertaining American troops at military bases in the Middle East. Oban was the drummer in a six-person band that performed on American bases in the Middle East, including Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Iraq. Oban is a senior studying entrepreneurial business at Belmont, when he is not playing drums.
Belmont growth explosive since 2000 – Nashville City Paper
Nashville City Paper explores some of the factors in Belmont University’s rapid growth over the past five years:
In the fall of 2000, Belmont University was steadily falling into collegiate limbo, wedged between having a stagnant enrollment and being overstaffed while under-endowed. That year, Bob Fisher was named president with a vision to increase the university’s enrollment from less than 3,000 to 4,000 by 2007. Provost Dan McAlexander was brought onboard in the spring of 2001 to spearhead the expansion. “We were running programs inefficiently, and because of that, we were behind on what we were able to pay faculty and staff,” he said. “We were basically serving too few people with too many.”
“Where the term student-athlete is not an oxymoron.”
Tennessean sports columnist David Climer writes about Belmont University men’s basketball coach Rick Byrd: “March has gone mad for Belmont. Rick Byrd, who steered this program from the NAIA to NCAA Division I, has reached college basketball’s promised land after 24 years as a head coach. He has found the right fit at Belmont. He coaches an above-board program where the term student-athlete is not an oxymoron, so much so that on the evening after the Bruins punched their ticket to the NCAA Tournament, the players went on spring break. Just like regular college kids. You can read Climer’s column online here.
To purchase official Belmont Bruins merchandise, visit the Belmont Bookstore online.
From the Boulevard to the Big Dance – Nashville City Paper
The rest of the nation is learning what Nashville basketball fans have known for over 50 years: The Battle of the Boulevard is something special. … The win culminates Belmont’s odyssey from NAIA national power to struggling NCAA provisional team and now NCAA tourney participant. – Read the whole story in the Nashville City Paper or download the PDF file here.
To purchase official Belmont Bruins merchandise, visit the Belmont Bookstore online.
Women Capture A-Sun Title
The Belmont women’s basketball team (21-6, 17-3 A-Sun) clinched the top seed in the 2006 Atlantic Sun Women’s Basketball Championship with a 78-71 win over Florida Atlantic (17-8, 16-4 A-Sun) Saturday evening at the Curb Event Center. With the victory, the Bruins also claimed the 2005-06 A-Sun Regular Season title and the top seed in the upcoming Atlantic Sun Conference Tournament in Dothan, Alabama. Belmont returns to action on Thursday, March 9th, in a first-round game against #8 seed Stetson at 1 p.m. The winner of the tournament receives an automatic bid to the 2006 NCAA Tournament. More info at Bruins Online and on the A-Sun website here.
To purchase official Belmont Bruins merchandise, visit the Belmont Bookstore online.
Dancing With History
In the most historic game yet in a historic rivalry, Belmont’s men’s basketball team defeated Lipscomb University 74-69 in a seesaw battle that went to overtime, winning the Atlantic Sun Conference Tournament championship and earning Belmont’s first-ever berth in the NCAA Tournament, a/k/a “the Big Dance.”
The Bruins (20-10), tied 31-31 with Lipscomb at halftime and 58-58 at the end of regulation, won the game in overtime on the hot shooting of sophomore guard Justin Hare, who scored a career-high 32 points in the contest, including 10 points in the overtime period.
Fittingly, the game ended with the ball in Hare’s hands as he got a steal on Lipscomb’s final possession and dribbled the ball several times as the clock ran down before tossing it high in the air as the clock ran out. Hare (pictured) won the tournament’s Most Valuable Player award.
Belmont and Lipscomb, three miles apart on Nashville’s Belmont Boulevard, have been basketball rivals for decades. The intense rivalry, called the “Battle of the Boulevard,” dates to 1953. Both schools’ men’s basketball programs were national powers in the NAIA in the 1980s and 1990s, often competing for Tennessee Collegiate Athletic Conference championships. Belmont moved to NCAA Division I in 1997 and Lipscomb followed three years later. Belmont now is the first to advance to the NCAA tournament.
“The fact that it was the two of us just upped the ante big time,” Belmont coach Rick Byrd told the Associated Press. “If we’d been playing Gardner-Webb or East Tennessee State we would have wanted to win bad, but we wouldn’t have gone home and listened to who won for two weeks and naturally so. And they didn’t want to have to do it either.”
Belmont Bruins Sports has the game stats here. ESPN recaps the game here and has a game photo gallery here.
More coverage:
Bruins Online: Dancing Shoes a Perfect Fit For Bruins
Tennessean: Bruins Go To NCAAs
Atlantic Sun News: Belmont Punches NCAA Dance Card with OT Thriller
The A-Sun has game photos here and here, and post-game press conference audio here.
Belmont Men To Face Lipscomb For A-Sun Title, NCAA Slot
Winner of A-Sun Tournament Gets Automatic Bid to NCAA Tournament
Belmont’s men’s basketball team defeated Stetson University 72-59 in the semifinal of the 2006 Atlantic Sun Conference Men’s Basketball Championship at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City, Tenn., Friday night. The 400th victory for longtime coach Rick Byrd sets up a historic game with long-time rival and Nashville neighbor Lipscomb University in the tournament championship game today. Neither school has won the A-Sun title or gone to the NCAA since moving to Division 1 a few years ago. The winner of the A-Sun tournament gets an automatic berth in the NCAA tournament. The championship game is at 1:00pm central time and will be televised on ESPN2 (Nashville cable channel 29). You can also listen to it online at Bruins Live.
Psychology Faculty Present at Conference
The psychology faculty of Belmont University attended the 18th Southeastern Conference on the Teaching of Psychology held in Atlanta February 24-25. Dr. Mike Sullivan presented on a symposium entitled “Effective Activities and Demonstrations for Teaching Research Methods.” Dr. Peter Giordano presented a workshop entitled “Principles of Effective Grading” and participated in a session entitled “Effective Demonstrations and Activities for the Introductory Psychology Course.”
