First Up: Belmont Bruins – Yahoo Sports

Duke will face Belmont Thursday, and things could get interesting.

The teams have played twice before, once in the 2008 NCAA Tournament, and once inf 2011, when the Maui Invitational had the Bruins visit Cameron.

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Total margin of victory? Two points.

In 2008, Duke won 71-70, and in 2011, it was 77-76. So there’s some interesting history there.

And now, former Duke assistant Evan Bradds is the new head coach, and his team seems to be taking this exhibition game very seriously.

Belmont’s Jabez Jenkins said this: “To us, we’re going to play it like it’s the national championship game. We’re going to play it like they’re Duke and we’re Belmont; we are the team that we’ve been working on all summer, and we’re going to go in there ready to play.”

As they should. But what are they bringing to the table?

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Well, start with Bradds. He has coached with Brad Stevens, the Utah Jazz, and Jon Scheyer, not to mention his own college coach, Rick Byrd, who was absolutely brilliant.

Bradds is just 32, by the way, and he’s immensely promising.

Before we get into the players, a caveat: it’s getting really difficult to know who is back and who transferred in. So this may not be totally accurate.

Belmont returns Jenkins (6-4 junior), Cooper Haynes (6-2 junior), Eoin Dillon (6-9 junior), Graydon Lemke (6-10 junior), Jack Smiley (6-2 sophomore), and Isaiah West (6-2 senior).

The transfers are Kayden Fish, a 6-6 senior from Ball State, Matthew Zobrist, a 6-5 sophomore from Bradley, Aleksa Ristic, a 6-3 sophomore from Indiana, and Vincent Neugebauer, a 7-1/24o lb. from FAU.

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The freshmen are Eli Brown, (6-2), Cooper Knowles, (6-10), and Charlie Gersmehl (6-8).

Since Bradds is a first-year coach with seven new players, it’s really hard to know what to expect. However, some things seem reasonable to anticipate.

Belmont will move the ball well and get good shots. They’ll have good spacing. The ball may not touch the floor all that much. They’re going to be physical, will try to…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/first-belmont-bruins-114500623.html

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Publish date : 2026-10-07 11:45:00

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