Evan Bradds chases a title with Duke before bringing high-level influences back to Belmont

— A year and a half on from Hurricane Helene, I-40 in some areas between North Carolina and Tennessee is still down to just one lane in each direction. The hurricane changed the communities and families in those Appalachian regions of the states, but passing through that section in either direction will take you back to the big cities. Whether east to the Research Triangle, or west to Nashville, you’ll find two families that won’t be split up.

These families have only needed one lane, one track to accomplish their one mission for the last 40-plus years. And now, they’re intertwined. As the Duke Blue Devils, coached by former national champion point guard Jon Scheyer, who took over for Mike Krzyzewski in 2022 and has since won more games through a coach’s first four seasons than any other in history, prepare for their third straight regional final, assistant coach Evan Bradds is nearing the end of his Duke chapter.

Once Duke’s season ends, Bradds will drive his stuff across that road, through the hurricane-ravaged sections, all the way to the Music City, to go back to the place where he made his name. On March 19, he was named the successor to Casey Alexander as head coach at his alma mater, Belmont, continuing the lineage of the legendary Rick Byrd . Byrd’s 713 wins as the Bruins head coach changed the university, but the process by which he earned those wins created a foundation for even more after he retired in 2019.

Bradds wasn’t the only former Bruin who could’ve gotten the job. “I think it’s natural that Belmont wants to continue with what was built and how it was built,” Byrd told Mid-Major Madness. “The quality of the people that they always want to recruit, that we always want to recruit, some of the things outside of the game of basketball that were important to our program, was important to (former Belmont and new Kansas State head coach) Casey Alexander , and it will be to Evan, and it is to Mick Hedgepeth at UAH , and Steve Drabyn at Bethel (University) in Indiana , and tons of high school coaches as well.