The old price of success in mid-major college basketball was the threat of losing your coach to a bigger job. Many of the top mid-major programs over the years became some of the top coaching incubators in the sport. VCU, Xavier, Dayton, Murray State … their head coaching alumni have often launched from there to some of the best jobs in the country.
Belmont has become something of an exception in its 27-year Division I history. Legendary head coach Rick Byrd was never wooed away from the program he helped move up from NAIA to D-I, even after success (eight NCAA tournament bids from 2006 to ’19) few if anyone at Belmont’s level could match. Casey Alexander played for Byrd in the 1990s, coached under him for 16 years, then returned home, after stops at Stetson and Lipscomb, to be the program’s head coach when Byrd eventually retired in 2019. And under Alexander, the program has maintained similar success even after moving up into the much more difficult Missouri Valley Conference from the Ohio Valley Conference. Nineteen 20-plus-win seasons in 20 years (with multiple NBA draft picks along the way) is a near unprecedented run to go on without losing a coach to the sport’s highest level, but Belmont has managed it.
