Bell played high school basketball at the Academy of Holy Angels in Richfield, Minnesota.

In his senior season, he averaged 35.9 points, 6.0 rebounds and 4.0 assists and led the state of Minnesota in scoring.

Bell was an All-American at Boston College, winning a conference player of the year award, and sharing another with Troy Murphy.

He was named Big East Conference player of the year after both his sophomore (shared) and senior seasons,[1] joining Troy Murphy, Richard Hamilton, Patrick Ewing, and Chris Mullin as the only players to win the award multiple times.

[1][4] He was signed by the Austin Toros of the D-League when Jay Williams was waived due to injury in late December 2006.

[1] Two seasons after 2003–04, Bell played briefly in Spain (Real Madrid) and in Germany (Frankfurt Skyliners).

[1] For the 2007–2008 season, he signed first for the Italian Serie A team, Angelico Biella, then on 12 March 2008 moved to Fastweb Casale Monferrato.