The Belmont Bruins are the intercollegiate athletic teams of

Belmont University Belmont University is a private Christian university in Nashville, Tennessee. Descended from Belmont Women's College, founded in 1890 by schoolteachers Ida Hood and Susan Heron, the institution was incorporated in 1951 as Belmont College. It be ...

located in

Nashville, Tennessee Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and ...

, United States. The Bruins athletic program is a member of the

Missouri Valley Conference The Missouri Valley Conference (also called MVC or simply "The Valley") is the third-oldest collegiate athletic conference in the United States. The conference's members are primarily located in the midwest. History The MVC was established ...

. Prior to 2022, the Bruins were members of the

Ohio Valley Conference The Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) is a collegiate athletic conference which operates in the Midwestern and Southeastern United States. It participates in Division I of the NCAA; the conference's football programs compete in the Football Cham ...

(OVC) and competes at the

NCAA Division I NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest level of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major collegiate athleti ...

level. The program's mascot is Bruiser the Bruin, and the school colors are navy blue and red. The Belmont teams had been known as the Rebels until 1995, when the name was changed due to the historical implications of the name.

Sports sponsored

Missouri Valley Conference in Belmont Bruins colors

A member of the

, Belmont University sponsors teams in eight men's and nine women's

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges ...

sanctioned sports. The men's tennis program joined the

Horizon League The Horizon League is an 11-school collegiate athletic conference in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I, whose members are located in and near the Great Lakes region. The Horizon League founded in 1979 as the Mi ...

for that sport shortly after Belmont joined the MVC (which sponsors tennis only for women).

Basketball

The school has a heated basketball rivalry with

Lipscomb University Lipscomb University is a private university in Nashville, Tennessee. It is affiliated with the Churches of Christ. The campus is located in the Green Hills neighborhood of Nashville, between Belmont Boulevard to the west and Granny White Pike ...

, a similarly-sized private institution in Nashville. For much of both schools' athletic histories, Belmont and Lipscomb played one another at least twice per year on a home-and-home basis (even more frequently in some years) in both men's and women's basketball. These games are

nickname A nickname is a substitute for the proper name of a familiar person, place or thing. Commonly used to express affection, a form of endearment, and sometimes amusement, it can also be used to express defamation of character. As a concept, it is ...

d the "Battle of the Boulevard", alluding to the road connecting the two schools. In 2006, with both teams battling for their first-ever NCAA tournament berths, Belmont defeated Lipscomb in overtime to win the Atlantic Sun championship 74–69. The Belmont Bruins were seeded 15th in the 2006 NCAA tournament, losing in the first round to the

UCLA Bruins The UCLA Bruins are the athletic teams that represent the University of California, Los Angeles. The Bruin men's and women's teams participate in NCAA Division I as part of the Pac-12 Conference and the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) ...

. Even though the two schools are no longer in the same conference following Belmont's 2012 move to the OVC, the games are still played twice a year for both men and women. (The only other non-conference basketball rivalry in Division I with two games each season is New Mexico–New Mexico State.) In 2007, Belmont won the Atlantic Sun Conference men's basketball tournament for the second year in a row, defeating

East Tennessee State University East Tennessee State University (ETSU) is a public research university in Johnson City, Tennessee. Although it is part of the State University and Community College System of Tennessee, the university is governed by an institutional Board of Tr ...

in Johnson City 94–67. The Bruins continued to the NCAA Tournament for the second consecutive year, losing in the first round to the Georgetown Hoyas. In 2008, the Bruins advanced for the third straight year to the NCAA men's basketball tournament, after winning the Atlantic Sun Regular Season as well as Atlantic Sun Tournament Championship, again earning a 15 seed, this time against the #2 seeded

Duke Blue Devils The Duke Blue Devils are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent Duke University, located in Durham, North Carolina. Duke's athletics department features 27 varsity teams that all compete at the National Collegiate Athletic Associatio ...

. Belmont had their best tournament showing ever in this game, losing by a score of 71–70 to the Blue Devils. In 2009, the Bruins posted their first postseason men's basketball victory by beating

Evansville Evansville is a city in, and the county seat of, Vanderburgh County, Indiana, United States. The population was 118,414 at the 2020 census, making it the state's third-most populous city after Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, the largest city in ...

in the CollegeInsider.com Post Season Tournament (CIT). In 2011, the Belmont Bruins Men's Basketball program posted a 19–1 record in the Atlantic Sun Conference, won the regular season conference championship, and won the Atlantic Sun Conference tournament Championship by the largest margin (41 points) in conference history. The Bruins entered the NCAA Tournament as a 13th seed, losing to Wisconsin 72–58. The Bruins' 30–5 record for the season set a new, NCAA era record for the program. In 2012, the team won the Atlantic Sun Regular Season Championship for the fifth time in six years, along with the Atlantic Sun Conference tournament, thus reaching the NCAA Tournament for the fifth time in seven years. Belmont received the fourteenth seed in the Midwest Regional, losing to Georgetown 74-59.

Athletic facilities

Belmont's on-campus Curb Event Center is home for the volleyball and men's and women's basketball teams. The group of stadiums at Nashville's E. S. Rose Park, located near the campus, is home for Belmont's baseball, softball, men's and women's soccer, and men's and women's outdoor track and field teams. Nashville's Percy Warner Park hosts Belmont's men's and women's cross country teams. Belmont's men's golf team practice facility is The Little Course at Conner Lane in Franklin, Tennessee. The on-campus Francis Bond Davis Tennis Complex is home to the Belmont men's and women's tennis teams.

References

External links

* {{Tennessee Sports Sports in Nashville, Tennessee