Women's Basketball Travels to Nationally-Ranked Kentucky Friday

 
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Wrapping up the non-conference portion of its 2024-25 schedule, the Belmont University women's basketball team heads to top-25 ranked Kentucky Friday evening. Tipoff from historic Memorial Coliseum in Lexington, Kentucky, is set for 5 p.m. CT/6 p.m. ET.
 
The non-conference finale will be broadcast on SEC Network+ with Jeff Piecoro (play-by-play) and Christi Thomas (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

• The Bruins (5-5) are facing their fourth top-20 opponent of the season and are taking on a Southeastern Conference program for the second consecutive outing.
• Belmont had its three-game winning streak snapped last Saturday afternoon by receiving-votes Mississippi State in a tightly-contested neutral-site battle in Tupelo, Mississippi.
• Despite leading the Bulldogs for over 28 minutes of the contest from the 6:01 mark of the first quarter to the 6:53 mark of the fourth quarter, the Bruins were whistled for a foul on a near three-quarters court heave with 0.2 seconds left. Graduate guard Tuti Jones had tied the score at 70 apiece with 3.3 seconds remaining. Mississippi State's Destiney McPhaul knocked down all three of her free throws to give the Bulldogs a 73-70 win before time expired.
• Belmont led Mississippi State by as much as 11 with 2:12 to go in the third quarter before the Bulldogs put together a game-altering 24-6 run. Trailing by seven at 67-60 with a minute left, the Bruins went on an impressive 10-3 run in 55 seconds of play to tie things up in the closing seconds.
• Sophomore guard Jailyn Banks scored a career-high tying 23 points on 6-for-11 shooting last Saturday against Mississippi State. She scored 11 of Belmont's first 19 points and dropped nine points in the fourth quarter. Going 9-for-10 at the free-throw line, Banks was 2-for-4 from beyond the arc.
• Both of Banks' career-best 23-point performances have been against SEC opponents. The Spring Hill, Tennessee (Middle Tennessee Christian School), native also put up 23 points in her collegiate debut at Missouri to begin the 2023-24 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 second-most difficult in the country. Only Alabama State has played a more difficult schedule according to the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET).
• The Bruins have defeated an SEC team in three of the previous four seasons, including a 76-50 rout of Georgia last November in Nashville. Belmont has earned road wins at SEC mainstays Ole Miss (Nov. 11, 2021) and Auburn (Dec. 20, 2020) in recent years.
• Junior guard Emily La Chapell scored a career-high 26 points on a career-best 12-for-17 shooting in the Bruins' decisive, 65-52 victory over mid-state foe Middle Tennessee on Saturday, Dec. 7.
• Both La Chapell and graduate guard Kendall Holmes have scored in double figures in seven of 10 games this season.
• Senior forward Kendal Cheesman has reached double figures in each of the last three games.
• On Sunday, Nov. 17, Belmont nearly upset top-15 ranked Ohio State inside the Curb Event Center 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. 11/9 Ohio State and traveled to now No. 9/10 Duke on Thursday, Nov. 21.

Nothing but NET

• With the NET rankings released on a daily basis since the beginning of December, the Bruins sit at No. 47.
• Last season, Belmont finished 71st in the NET.
• All five of the Bruins' losses this season have been against teams ranked in the top 25 of the NET.
• Belmont owns the highest NET ranking in the 12-team Missouri Valley Conference. Both Murray State at No. 57 and Northern Iowa at No. 71 are also ranked in the top 75 of the NET.
• The Wildcats enter Friday ranked 33rd in the NET.

A Winning Program

• The Bruins are 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.
• Belmont has 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

• For the second-straight week, the Bruins are ranked 19th in the sixth 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 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 10 games, Holmes is the Bruins' second-leading scorer (11.4 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, head coach Bart 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 177-60 (.747) 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 takes on 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.

Bluegrass State Natives

• Belmont has two natives of the Bluegrass State in sophomore guard Kensley Feltner from Louisa (Lawrence County HS) and freshman guard Eubank from Union (Ryle HS).
• Feltner, who grew up a little over two hours from Lexington, is the Commonwealth of Kentucky's fourth all-time leading scorer. Just the fourth player in state history to score 4,000 points, Feltner finished her illustrious varsity career with 4,189 points and was a finalist for Kentucky Miss Basketball.
• From just over an hour north of the University of Kentucky, Eubank nearly averaged a double-double across her prep career. She scored nearly 2,000 points and collected over 1,300 rebounds at Ryle and was one of only six McDonald's All-American game nominees from Kentucky as a senior last January. Also a Kentucky Miss Basketball finalist, Eubank was selected to play in the prestigious Kentucky-Ohio All-Star game last spring.

Versus Kentucky

• Friday evening will be the seventh all-time meeting between the Bruins and Kentucky.
• The Wildcats own a 5-1 lead in the series and have won each of the last five matchups.
• Belmont won the first meeting between the two teams during the 1975-76 season, a 75-60 victory in Lexington on Feb. 21, 1976.
• The last time the Bruins took on Kentucky was Nov. 29, 2020, in Belmont's late 2020-21 season opener due to the ongoing COVID-19 global pandemic. The Wildcats were ranked 11th in the nation at the time and handled the Bruins 70-50 inside Memorial Coliseum.
• One of Belmont's most memorable NCAA Tournament games was against fourth-seeded and 18th-ranked Kentucky in the first round of the 2017 NCAA Tournament. The Bruins nearly upset the Wildcats on their home floor on March 17, 2017, but were edged 73-70. After leading by one at halftime, Belmont came back from down 11 in the third quarter and nearly sent the game into overtime as All-American guard Darby Maggard's would-be tying three went left as time expired.

Against the SEC

• The Bruins are 21-48 all-time versus current SEC members.
• Belmont came within a ball bounce of upsetting 18th-ranked and fourth-seeded Tennessee (70-67) in Knoxville in the 2022 NCAA Tournament Second Round.
• Coach Brooks is 4-11 against SEC opponents with wins over Georgia, Ole Miss, Auburn and Vanderbilt.

About the Wildcats

• Head coach Kenny Brooks took over the Kentucky program in late March after guiding Virginia Tech to unprecedented heights the previous eight seasons. During his time in Blacksburg, Virginia, coach Brooks led the Hokies to four consecutive NCAA Tournaments (2021-24), the school's first Final Four in 2023, and both Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament (2022-23) and ACC regular season championships (2023-24).
• The Wildcats are off to a 9-1 start with their lone loss coming two weeks ago at 16th-ranked North Carolina (72-53) as part of the SEC/ACC Challenge.
• Last Saturday, Kentucky trounced Purdue 82-52 on the road.
• The Wildcats were picked eighth by both the media and league's head coaches in the SEC's preseason predicted order of finish and 5-foot-6 graduate guard Georgia Amoore was named to the Preseason All-SEC First Team.
• Kentucky went 12-20 last season and was 4-12 in the SEC, finishing 12th in the then 14-team conference.
• The Wildcats have been one of the best defensive teams in the nation early this season, ranking fourth nationally in field goal percentage defense (31.6 percent), 11th in three-point field goal percentage defense (23.4 percent), 19th in scoring defense (53.7 PPG), and leading the country in blocks (8.7 BPG).
• Amoore, who was an All-American at Virginia Tech before transferring to Kentucky, is one of the most prolific guards in the nation. She is averaging the second-most assists nationally (7.2 APG) while scoring 15.6 points per game.
• All five of the Wildcats' starters are averaging double-figure scoring led by sophomore 6-foot-5 center Clara Strack (16.0 PPG), who is also a Virginia Tech transfer. Strack is also averaging a team-high 9.9 rebounds per outing, to go along with 3.6 assists and 2.6 blocks per contest.
• Junior 6-foot-4 forward Teonni Key, a North Carolina transfer, is one of three players averaging a near double-double with 11.5 points, 9.7 rebounds and a team-best 2.9 blocks per game.
• Junior 6-foot-3 forward Amelia Hassett, a junior college All-American transfer, is averaging 10.8 points and 9.8 boards per outing.
• Redshirt senior 5-foot-8 guard Dazia Lawrence, a four-year letter winner and 2023-24 first-team all-conference selection in the American Athletic Conference at Charlotte, is averaging 13 points on 50.5 percent shooting, including 47.9 percent (23-of-48) from deep.

Up Next
The Bruins will have a nine-day break from game action for Christmas before beginning MVC play on Sunday, Dec. 29 at home against Bradley. Tipoff from the Curb in Nashville is scheduled for 2 p.m. The Valley opener will be broadcast on ESPN+.
 
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
Follow Belmont women's basketball on social media - @BelmontWBB on X, formerly Twitter, @belmontwbb on Instagram and Belmont Women's Basketball on Facebook - for complete coverage of the Bruins. Stay up to date with all of Belmont's athletic programs via the official app of the Belmont Bruins, available both in the Apple App Store and on Google Play.