Belmont punches ticket with a backdoor cut game-winner, which is incredibly on-brand

It’s conference tournament season already, which means we saw our first teams officially going to the NCAA Tournament today.

Earlier, Utah State won in ridiculous fashion, upsetting San Diego State in the Mountain West final.

While that game was a ton of fun, the Ohio Valley title game between Belmont and Murray State nearly matched it. After both teams traded points down the stretch, Murray State hit two free throws to take a one-point lead with about ten seconds remaining. After a series of timeouts, Belmont drew up a game-winning bucket in very Belmont fashion:

Here’s Michael Grant’s courtside video, which captures just how freaking loud it was there:

Here’s the basket by Tyler Scanlon that sent @BelmontMBB to the @OVCSports title and the NCAA tournament. pic.twitter.com/KET0eiLKk3

— Michael Grant (@MichaelGrant_CJ) March 8, 2020

After Belmont snuffed Murray State’s desperation attempt to answer, their NCAA trip was officially booked with a 76-75. These two schools have both been fairly elite programs over the years, and it’s kind of a shame that the loser is probably not in line for an at-large bid this year. Mid-major life isn’t really fair.