NCAA Basketball: Buy or sell BYU, San Diego State, Belmont as Sweet 16 teams?

Belmont Bruins – Sell

There should be a two-bid Ohio Valley Conference this season, as it is historically a one-bid league. Belmont is the only team on this list who is not a lock to make the tournament due to the conference they play in. The Ohio Valley has two great teams, three good teams and some not good teams.

Those great teams in Belmont and Murray State are going to likely split with each other in the regular season and outside of them playing each other for the conference title game the league is going to get one bid most likely.

This is the last year that either of these teams will be in the Ohio Valley. As of July 1st, 2022 Belmont, is headed to the Missouri Valley conference where they will see an uptick in competition every night and have far better chances to make the NCAA tournament as an at large every year. The Bruins are one of the best low major teams in the country. They can score, and they are one of the most efficient teams in the country from the field.

Belmont has three guards who are deadly from deep and a Big man who is likely going to win the conference player of the year. The Bruins are a great team and are going to win a lot of games and not lose very many games.

The reason for the “sell” rating has to do with the fact they may not even make the NCAA tournament and if they do they are going to be seeded low enough that they are going to have a tough matchup that Belmont likely isn’t going to win.

Belmont has played four teams who can consider will either be on the bubble or make the tournament this year. They have lost to three of them and beaten one. They opened the year with a loss to Ohio. They got beat by 30 by a good LSU team on the road. They were able to beat a good Iona team, but then turned around and lost to Dayton the next day.

Belmont is going to score a ton of points because they can shoot the ball well and they create matchup problems for everyone in their conference. Those matchup problems don’t carry over very well historically and likely won’t again this year in the tournament. I love Belmont, I enjoy watching them play Basketball and I would love nothing more than to see them playing in the second weekend of the event, but it doesn’t seem likely that will happen.