Under the Radar Game of the Day – Monday, December 7: Belmont at Lipscomb

Under the Radar Game of the Day: Belmont at Lipscomb, 7:30 PM Eastern, espn3

The Battle of the Boulevard.  When leaving Belmont University’s campus in Nashville, make a left onto Belmont Boulevard and head south.  Less than three miles down the “Boulevard”, on your left hand side, you will reach Lipscomb University.  There are very few Division I colleges located closer to one another than these two long-time rivals, and tonight, the teams renew their rivalry once again, in Lipscomb’s Allen Arena.  The two teams have been playing since both were NAIA schools, with the first game dating back to December 11, 1953 (a 72-53 Lipscomb victory).  The most famous games in the series were a 124-105 Lipscomb win in 1990, in a game played at Vanderbilt’s Memorial Gymnasium and in 2006, when Belmont pulled out a thrilling overtime win, 74-69, in a matchup in the Atlantic Sun conference tournament championship game.  Since Belmont moved to the Ohio Valley Conference, the two teams have met twice almost every year.  This is the second of their two games this season — Belmont won the first one last week by a score of 105-89.

Belmont is 5-4 on the season so far, almost disappointing for a team that was picked preseason to win the Ohio Valley Conference.  However, none of their losses have been bad ones by any means (at Arizona State, at Evansville, at BYU and at Valparaiso).  Their top win (other than in round 1 of this season’s Battle) was at Marquette to start the season.  Despite a record just barely over .500, Rick Byrd’s squad has looked good enough to run through the OVC, where their biggest competition will probably come from Murray State, a team that lost a lot off of last season’s conference regular season championship squad.

Lipscomb enter tonight’s game at 3-7, with only two of those wins coming over Division I competition.  Despite the Bisons’ struggles so far this season, there have been some bright spots, including the recent play of Josh Williams.  Williams has scored 17, 21, 20 and 13 points his last four times out and is starting to emerge as one of the team’s top scoring threats.  He will be looked upon, along with his teammates, to help lead the Bisons to victory tonight.  And despite the fact that, on paper at least, Belmont appears to be the stronger team this season, never count out the underdog home team in a rivalry as heated as this one is.  We fully expect a tough competitive game that could come right down to the wire.