Despite Late-Game Heroics, Belmont Drops Home Opener
Despite a furious second-half comeback and a miraculous tying shot in the final 10 seconds, Belmont suffered a crushing 69-66 loss to South Florida in the Bruins’ home opener.
Coming out of a timeout, Belmont ran an inbounds play for freshman Chelby Jordan, who passed to sophomore Kate McGinnis at the top of the key, who connected on a deep 3-pointer to tie the game after feigning a screen. It was the first time the teams had been tied since it was 3-3.
Despite how well the play worked, it wasn’t in the Bruins’ playbook; head coach Bart Brooks made it up on the spot.
“I just drew it up because I felt like it was something we could get based on how they were defending,” Brooks said. “I thought the players did a great job executing that with a marker board and their imagination.”
With 5.5 seconds left, South Florida called a timeout to advance the ball, and senior Amourie Porter hit a game-winning three-point play to stun the Bruins.
After Porter made her free throw, the Bruins had 1.4 seconds to try a nearly full-court heave to tie, and Jordan’s attempt fell well short.
Belmont was without a timeout due to a frantic final 30 seconds.
Down three, Belmont forced a stop with a block by junior Quinn Eubank, giving the Bruins the ball and 31 seconds left. Brooks called a timeout to advance the ball and call a play.
However, after his team didn’t execute the play call and wasted the first 21 seconds, Brooks burned his final timeout with 10 seconds left to call a new play.
“We had an action we were going to run, and they made it hard to get it in. We got it into the wrong player; I don’t know what we were doing,” Brooks said. “I’ve never seen that before, and it’s just part of having a young team. Those players have never been in that situation before.”
The Bruins had Jordan, McGinnis, Eubank, graduate transfer Kenley McCarn and fifth-year KK Brodie on the court before Brooks called his final timeout.
“I didn’t see anything good happening out of what we were getting, so we needed to call another timeout,” Brooks said. “That’s unfortunate because we needed another timeout. 1.4 seconds, we could have advanced the ball and had a shot in the air to tie the game.”
Belmont struggled early, but a South Florida cold spell combined with three McGinnis 3-pointers gave the Bruins a manageable two-point deficit heading into the second quarter.
Things went sideways from there.
After ending the first quarter on a 0-for-7 shooting skid, South Florida began the second quarter with a 9-0 scoring run, while the Bruins missed their first five shots.
Overall, Belmont turned the ball over six times and shot just 2-for-13 from the field in the second quarter, getting outscored 18-4 in the process.
“I think we were allowing their physicality to push us off our spots way too easily,” Brooks said. “We didn’t shoot a free throw in the first half, and that’s hard to do in a college basketball game with as physical as these two teams were playing.”
Belmont got off to a much stronger start in the second half, using two 9-0 runs in the third quarter to cut the deficit back to single digits.
After Belmont forced a miss on the final possession, it appeared the Bruins were heading into the fourth quarter down seven, but South Florida secured two offensive rebounds and hit a second-chance layup to push the lead to nine.
On a day when Belmont allowed 22 offensive rebounds and 12 second-chance points, the end of the third quarter underscored Belmont’s struggles closing out defensive possessions.
“Rebounding is a big part of winning. I think it’s extremely important,” Brooks said. “I think it was challenging with the size and physicality we were playing against tonight… but we’ve got to be better at that.”
In the fourth quarter, South Florida extended its lead to 11 with 4:15 to play, before Belmont went on a 10-2 run to make it a one-possession game with 52 seconds to go.
Despite the Bruins’ best efforts, South Florida held on to earn its first Opening Statement win.
The Opening Statement tournament is a new cross-conference event featuring the top teams in the Missouri Valley Conference, American Conference, Atlantic 10 Conference and Ivy League.
Belmont is hosting half of the tournament, while the rest of the teams are playing in Richmond, Virginia. Columbia and Rhode Island are the other teams playing in Nashville.
“I’m just grateful for the four leagues that put this together, so we have opportunities to play really good games early in the season,” Brooks said.
Belmont’s next Opening Statement game will be Sunday afternoon against Columbia at 2:45 p.m.
This article was written by Sam Dicus
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