Bruins Face Mississippi State Saturday in Neutral-Site Affair in Tupelo

 
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Following a week-long break from game action, the Belmont University women's basketball team returns to play Saturday afternoon in Tupelo, Mississippi, where the Bruins will take on receiving-votes Mississippi State inside Cadence Bank Arena. Tipoff is scheduled for 2 p.m.
 
The neutral-site affair will be broadcast on SEC Network+ with Mike Morgan (play-by-play) and Pat Bradley (analyst) on the call. The game can also be heard on Belmont Bruins Radio, available online, with Dr. Rich Tiner providing live play-by-play of the action. Live stats can be followed by visiting BelmontBruins.com.
 
What's Bruin

• Belmont (5-4) has won three in a row for the first time this season.
• The Bruins have held their opponent under 60 points in all five of their victories this season.
• Belmont's strength of schedule is currently ranked as the seventh-most difficult in the country. Only Alabama State, Southern University, South Carolina, Duke, New Orleans and Notre Dame have played a more difficult schedule according to the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET).
• The Bruins have defeated a Southeastern Conference team in three of the last four seasons, including a 76-50 rout of Georgia last November in Nashville.
• In Belmont's last trip to the Magnolia State in November of 2021, the Bruins topped Ole Miss 62-50 in Oxford. Like Mississippi State, both the Rebels and the Lady Bulldogs were receiving votes in the national coaches poll when Belmont faced them.
• Saturday will be the Bruins' third neutral-site game of the season. Belmont went 1-1 at the 2024 Elevance Health Fort Myers Tip-Off in the Sunshine State over Thanksgiving weekend. After falling 68-58 to now 20th-ranked Michigan in Fort Myers, Florida, the Bruins defeated Davidson 69-59.
• Belmont is 22-14 in neutral-site matchups under head coach Bart Brooks.
• The Bruins went 2-0 last week, earning an impressive 65-52 win over Middle Tennessee at the Curb Event Center Saturday afternoon after defeating nearby rival Lipscomb 63-55 for the 15th-straigt time last Wednesday evening on the opposite end of Belmont Boulevard. The Blue Raiders entered last weekend ranked second in the mid-major poll with seven first-place votes and had received top-25 votes in both national polls each of the previous four weeks of the season.
• Behind junior guard Emily La Chapell's career-high 26 points on a career-best 12-for-17 shooting and senior forward Kendal Cheesman's seventh career and second double-double of the season, Belmont led Middle Tennessee from the 8:43 mark of the opening quarter onward. The Bruins connected on a season-high tying 11 three-pointers and shot a season-best 40.7 percent from beyond the arc against the Blue Raiders, while holding Middle Tennessee to only 16 made field goals on 34 percent shooting.
• Cheesman went 6-for-11 from distance and grabbed 10 rebounds in the win over the Blue Raiders as Belmont limited Middle Tennessee's leading scorer, center Anastasiia Boldyreva, to four points on 1-for-9 shooting.
• The Bruins ended the game with four-straight triples and held the Blue Raiders without a field goal across the closing five minutes. Belmont finished on an impressive 18-6 run.
• Outscoring Middle Tennessee 20-13 in the fourth quarter, the Bruins went 7-for-14 from the field and 4-for-6 from distance in the final stanza. La Chapell scored 12 of her 26 points in the fourth.
• Last week, La Chapell averaged 18 points on 55.6 percent (15-of-27) shooting. She's scored in double figures in seven of nine games this season.
• Senior forward Carmyn Harrison has averaged 9.3 points and 9.0 rebounds in her last three outings.
• Sophomore guard Jailyn Banks has distributed 11 assists across the last two games.
• Graduate guard Kendall Holmes has reached double figures in six of nine games this season.
• On Sunday, Nov. 17, Belmont nearly upset top-15 ranked Ohio State inside the Curb in the Music City. The Bruins were knotted up with the Buckeyes at 63 with 30 seconds remaining and held a nine-point, 59-50 lead with just over five minutes to go.
• Belmont's season opener was at 13th-ranked Kansas State on Thursday, Nov. 7.

Early Tests Against Some of the Nation's Best

• The Bruins went up against three teams who are ranked in the top 15 of both the Associated Press (AP) Top 25 and USA Today Sports/Women's Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) Coaches Poll within the first three weeks of the season. In addition to its season-opening visit to No. 13/13 K-State, Belmont hosted now No. 11/8 Ohio State and traveled to now No. 9/10 Duke on Nov. 21. Next Friday, the Bruins head to 16th-ranked Kentucky.

Nothing but NET

• With the NET rankings released on a daily basis since the beginning of last week, Belmont sits at No. 51.
• Last season, the Bruins finished 71st in the NET.
• All four of Belmont's losses this season have been against teams ranked in the top 20 of the NET.
• The Bruins own the second-highest NET ranking in the 12-team Missouri Valley Conference and are just four spots behind No. 47 Murray State. Northern Iowa is also ranked in the top 75 of the NET at No. 65.
• The Bulldogs enter the weekend ranked 21st in the NET.

A Winning Program

• Belmont is the winningest program in the state of Tennessee over the previous 10 seasons, having claimed 237 victories with a winning percentage of .731 from 2014-24.
• Only nine other programs have also won 20-plus games for nine-straight seasons – UConn, Stanford, Baylor, South Carolina, Iowa, NC State, Indiana, South Dakota State and Florida Gulf Coast.
• The Bruins have won the 16th-most games of any NCAA Division I women's basketball program (1,088).
• Belmont is the only school in the nation to win 20-plus games for nine consecutive seasons in both women's and men's basketball.

A Championship Program

• The Bruins (11) are one of only five teams in the nation to have won more than 10 combined conference championships, regular season and tournament, over the last eight seasons. UConn (16), Florida Gulf Coast (14), South Carolina (11) and Princeton (10) are the other four.

National Postseason Success

• Belmont has made six of the last eight NCAA Tournaments and reached the Round of 32 back-to-back years in 2022 and 2021.
• The Bruins capped their 2023-24 season by claiming their third national postseason victory in four years with a 77-59 road win at Ball State in the first-ever Women's Basketball Invitation Tournament (WBIT) game.

National Recognition

• Belmont has either been ranked or received votes in at least one of the two major national polls in eight of the previous nine seasons.

Mid-Major Poll

• The Bruins are ranked 19th in the fifth CollegeInsider.com Mid-Major Top 25^® poll of the regular season.

Last Season

• Belmont went 26-9 to secure its most wins in a season since 2018-19. Going 17-3 in MVC play, the Bruins finished second in their second year in the Valley.

MVC Preseason Poll

• Belmont was picked third in the MVC Preseason Poll as voted upon by the league's head coaches, media members and communications contacts but garnered three first-place votes. The Bruins have finished first or second in their conference each of the last nine seasons.

Experience and Youth

• Returning starters graduate guard Tuti Jones, Cheesman and Banks, all of whom were All-MVC Third Team selections last year and were named Preseason All-MVC Second Team, are three of eight returning letter winners for Belmont.
• The Bruins have a great mix of experience and youth in 2024-25 with fifth-year Jones, senior Cheesman and graduate transfer guards Jacee Busick (Charlotte) and Holmes (South Dakota/DePaul) providing plenty of starting knowledge. Busick and Holmes brought in a combined 1,382 points and 150 Division I starts. In her Belmont debut at top-15 ranked K-State, Holmes scored a team-high 12 points. Through nine games, Holmes is the Bruins' second-leading scorer (11.0 PPG).
• Over the summer, Belmont also welcomed a trio of talented freshmen with guard Quinn Eubank (Union, Ky.), forward Hilary Fuller (Brisbane, Queensland, Australia) and guard Sanaa Tripp (Covington, Ga.) arriving in the Music City.

Under Coach Brooks

• In his eighth season at the helm, coach Brooks was named to the preseason watch list for the Kathy Delaney-Smith Mid-Major Coach of the Year Award presented by Her Hoop Stats for the second consecutive year.
• On Nov. 29, 2023, Brooks picked up his 150th win in less than 200 career games with the Bruins' 72-68 victory at Troy. He has led Belmont to a remarkable record of 177-59 (.750) and the Bruins are an astonishing 114-15 (.884) in conference games under his leadership.
• In conference tournament games, Brooks has gone 15-3 and he is 4-1 in championship contests. In the key months of February and March under Brooks' direction, Belmont is 79-14 (.849).

Among the Toughest Schedules in the Nation

• The Bruins annually play one of the best non-conference schedules in the country and this season is no different. Six of Belmont's 11 non-conference opponents this year are from power conferences. Combined with their MVC slate, the Bruins face 10 teams who won 20 or more games last season and have a date with nine programs who finished in the top 100 of the final 2023-24 NET rankings.
• Additionally, Belmont sees 12 national postseason teams from a year ago, including six who reached the 2024 NCAA Tournament.

Bruins at Home

• The Bruins are 104-15 (.874) at home since the start of the 2015-16 season.
• Belmont has a home winning percentage of .748 (202-68) inside the Curb since the arena opened prior to the 2003-04 season.
• Under coach Brooks, the Bruins are an exceptional 80-14 (.851) inside the Curb.
• In conference play, Belmont has been even more dominant at home, going 92-12 (.885) since 2012. In seven seasons, coach Brooks has lost only six league games at the Curb with a 58-6 (.906) record.
• The Bruins went 13-2 at home last season, securing the most home wins in a single season since 2019-20.

Versus Mississippi State

• Saturday will be the sixth all-time meeting between Belmont and Mississippi State with the Bulldogs owning a 4-1 lead in the series.
• It marks the second consecutive year the Bruins have taken on Mississippi State as the Bulldogs visited the Curb on Nov. 19 last year. Mississippi State escaped Nashville with a 63-62 win but had to get an offensive rebound, a go-ahead layup and a defensive stop in the closing seconds to do so.
• Belmont came back from an 11-point first-half deficit against the Bulldogs last season and led by three in the final two minutes. Trailing by one with 10 seconds left, the Bruins had two great looks but a Banks pull-up jumper and a putback attempt both rimmed off as the buzzer sounded.
• Mississippi State outrebounded Belmont 44-25 and outscored the Bruins 42-30 in the paint last season in Nashville.
• Jones had 18 points, five assists and two steals versus the Bulldogs last year, while Banks (13) and Cheesman (11) also scored in double figures.
• Belmont's lone win in the series came on Nov. 20, 2006, when the Bruins defeated Mississippi State 67-60 in Starkville, Mississippi.
• The first-ever meeting between the two teams took place in the 1976-77 national postseason tournament, which was named the National Women's Invitational Tournament (NWIT), where the Bulldogs emerged victorious, 94-73.
• While Belmont was transitioning to NCAA Division I, Mississippi State earned a 73-52 win in the Bruins' final game of the 1997-98 season.

Against the SEC

• Belmont is 21-47 all-time versus current SEC members.
• The Bruins came within a ball bounce of upsetting 18th-ranked and fourth-seeded Tennessee on the Lady Volunteers' home floor in the 2022 NCAA Tournament Second Round.
• Coach Brooks is 4-10 against SEC opponents with wins over Georgia, Ole Miss, Auburn and Vanderbilt.

About the Bulldogs

• Led by third-year head coach Sam Purcell, the Bulldogs are off to a 9-1 start.
• Mississippi State's lone loss was a 78-75 setback at now 25th-ranked Georgia Tech last Wednesday. The Bulldogs led by a point with just over 90 seconds to go.
• Averaging nearly 80 points per game (78.8 PPG), Mississippi State owns an average scoring margin of 30.1 points.
• The Bulldogs are 3-0 in neutral-site games this season with a 59-52 win over South Florida and a 66-62 triumph against Utah in the Cayman Islands. Mississippi State also blew past Jacksonville University 80-35 in Orlando, Florida.
• Last Sunday, the Bulldogs trounced Chicago State 102-42 in the Windy City.
• In the SEC's preseason predicted order of finish, Mississippi State was picked 11th by the media and 10th by the coaches in the now 16-team conference. Graduate 5-foot-10 guard Jerkaila Jordan was tabbed Preseason All-SEC Second Team by the league's head coaches.
• Just two seasons removed from reaching the 2023 NCAA Tournament Second Round as a No. 11 seed, the Bulldogs went 23-12 overall last year and tied for seventh in the then 14-team SEC with an 8-8 conference mark.
• Like Belmont, Mississippi State had its 2023-24 season come to an end at top-seeded Penn State in the WBIT quarterfinals.
• Jordan, a member of the All-SEC Second Team last season, is one of four Bulldogs averaging double-figure scoring (14.1 PPG).
• Graduate 6-foot guard/forward Eniya Russell, a transfer from Kentucky and previously South Carolina, leads the team in scoring (14.7 PPG) and assists (4.5 APG).
• Junior 6-foot-6 center Madina Okot is averaging 11.5 points and leads Mississippi State on the boards (8.5 RPG).
• Junior 6-foot-1 guard/forward Debreasha Powe is also averaging double figures (10.3 PPG).
• Junior 5-foot-5 guard Denim DeShields, a transfer from UAB where she was an American Athletic Conference All-Conference Third Team selection last season, is averaging 4.1 assists per outing.

Up Next
The Bruins close out their strenuous non-conference slate next Friday at nationally-ranked Kentucky. Tipoff from Memorial Coliseum in Lexington, Kentucky, is set for 5 p.m. CT/6 p.m. ET. Belmont's non-conference finale will be broadcast on SEC Network+.
 
Ticket Info
Season tickets are on sale for $199 per seat and include all women's and men's basketball home games.
 
View available seating and purchase your seats.
 
Flex pack plans for the 2024-25 season are also on sale and can be purchased here.
 
For more information, call 615-460-BALL or visit BelmontBruins.com/Tickets.
 
How to Follow
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