Could the Belmont Bruins be the NCAA’s next Gonzaga? Here’s the argument.

Everybody has a role model, the pinnacle of all aspiration. For the Nashville rapper selling mixtapes out of his car trunk on Dickerson Pike, maybe it's homegrown hip-hop hero Young Buck. For the kid shooting hoops on the blacktop near Maplewood High, it might be LeBron James. But for upstart college basketball programs seeking a springboard onto the national stage, that role model is as clear as its name is distinctive.

Before the mid-1990s, Gonzaga University was barely a blip on the basketball radar. A private Jesuit school in Spokane, Wash., Gonzaga hadn't fielded a football program since prior to Pearl Harbor. Its most famous alumnus was Bing Crosby. Who would have thought? But in 1999, the Gonzaga men's hoops program—the Bulldogs, or as fans know them, the Zags—seized the national spotlight, advancing all the way to the NCAA Tournament Elite Eight. Every March since, they've been in the Big Dance.

The reasons why are numerous. An appearance in the NCAA tourney doesn't just imprint itself upon the collective mindset of fans and ESPN. It also attracts big-time prep prospects who want the boost of association with a winning team. The well-funded Gonzaga has another magnet in its esteemed coach for the past 10 years, Mark Few. Plus, the Zags, by a wide margin, are the standout program in the West Coast Conference.

Hmmm. Small private school with no football team. A talented, respected coach who's staying put. A conference it can dominate. Some local hoops fans look at those elements, and they think of another team that might answer that description. Its name: the Belmont Bruins.

To be sure, no one is comparing Belmont with the Gonzaga team of 1999 and the program the decade hence. "I don't think there ever could be such a thing as a 'Gonzaga of the South,' " says Mike DeCourcy, a senior writer for Sporting News. "What has happened for Gonzaga is as much a product of its geography as it is its vision, ambition and competence."

But the Gonzaga that started picking up momentum in the mid-1990s and made its NCAA Tournament entrance in 1995—that may be a goal within closer reach than you might think.

Gradually and somewhat quietly, the Bruin program under coach Rick Byrd has developed a reputation much like the one Gonzaga began establishing in the 1993-94 season. In the past five seasons, Byrd's Bruins have managed to upset big-name Division I teams seemingly out of Belmont's league, such as Alabama, Cincinnati and Missouri.

That alone is impressive. But by the down-is-up standards of college ball, the bigger deal may be the close calls Belmont has given some of the NCAA's most feared powerhouses. Who would have thought that in the 2008 NCAA Tournament, the Bruins would give No. 2-seeded Duke a nailbiter settled in the last minute of play?

And yet there was Belmont driving the mighty Blue Devils all the way to the wall, forcing them to scratch out a one-point victory, 71-70.

In addition, Belmont has battled high-profile Division I teams at Kansas State, Memphis and Tennessee to the wire, while putting up respectable games against Ohio State, Pittsburgh and Michigan State. And it's worth pointing out that all those contests were played at the opponents' arenas—except for the Duke game, played before the nation at Verizon Center in Washington, D.C.

This Friday, the Belmont Bruins men's basketball team opens its season against Portland State. Of note, the game is in Seattle, practically Gonzaga's backyard. Some argue that Belmont's chance of achieving Gonzaga-like status is no more likely than conservative dresser Byrd ditching his ubiquitous sweater vest for a flashy Italian suit. Mike DeCourcy, for one, says respectable but less buzz-heavy schools such as Butler and Davidson make better models to compare with Belmont.

"Every school in America seems to want to be the Gonzaga of where they are," DeCourcy says.

Right—because Gonzaga is perceived as superior to the Butlers and Davidsons of the hoops world. True, Belmont could also aspire to match what the College of Charleston and Valparaiso have accomplished in the past 15 years or so. But who would care?

No, the kind of success that would put the Bruins within hailing distance of Gonzaga would be measured in Top 25 teams and annual appearances in the NCAA Tournament, including some wins. Not to mention producing the occasional NBA player. But if Gonzaga could reach an Elite Eight after only relatively recent success, why couldn't Belmont win two games in an NCAA tourney—the rough equivalent of a national championship for a "mid-major program"?

"I've heard coaches around the country talk like that," says Ron Bargatze, a Nashville-based college basketball expert, ex-coach and former Belmont student-athlete.

But for Byrd to elevate his program to a national presence—despite its affiliation with the oft-dismissed Atlantic Sun Conference—he and Belmont will have to face some looming questions. Are the Bruin coaches and the school's administration willing to tackle the expense, pressure and expectations that come with being in the majors? Can Nashville provide the kind of fan base, corporate support and media profile that gets a team to the dance?