LOUISVILLE, Ky.—The No. 1 Bellarmine University men's basketball team blistered the nets for 63.5 percent shooting and blistered the visiting St. Joseph's College Pumas 100-70 in a Great Lakes Valley Conference game tonight at Knights Hall.

The win was Bellarmine's 16th in a row, which ties a school record for most consecutive victories, and propels the Knights to 21-1 on the season with a 13-1 conference mark.

The Knights hit six of their first seven triples tonight as they built a 29-14 lead midway through the opening period. The treys came from multiple players and from all points around the perimeter.  Bellarmine “cooled” to 8-of-12  3-point shooting in the first half but still shot nearly 70 percent overall from the field to take a 52-31 lead into the locker room at halftime.

The opening series of the second half, however, helped put the exclamation mark on this victory early.  After the Pumas inbounded the ball to start the period, Luke Sprague blocked Michael Lipton's shot and the Knights came the other way where Jeremy Kendle lofted an alley oop for Chris Dowe who soared to catch the lob and dunked it backwards with two hands. The sellout crowd of 2.450 roared its approval, and St. Joseph's got no closer than 21 points the rest of the way as Bellarmine Coach Scott Davenport substituted early and liberally with no Knight playing more than 26 minutes.

Although his team just put on an exhibition in shooting the basketball, Davenport was most pleased with his team's rebounding.  “The stat of the night,” said a beaming Davenport, “is that we outrebounded them 41-28.  I've probably never worked a team harder than we worked the past couple of days on the backboards.”

Bellarmine again got balanced scoring as Dowe led five double-figure scorers with 17.  Kendle and Sprague contributed 16 each while Keisten Jones and Braydon Hobbs had 15 and 11 respectively.  Jelani Johnson came off the bench to grab seven rebounds to tie Sprague for game high honors in that category.

The Knights continued to distribute the ball unselfishly and racked up 20 assists on the night, led by Kendle's eight (with no turnovers).

Louisville native Dayvon Sloan led the way for St. Joseph's netting 13 points and dishing off six assists. The Pumas fell to 7-15 overall and 2-12 in league play.

Bellarmine's victory, coupled with a loss by Kentucky Wesleyan, gives the Knights a 3-game cushion in the GLVC standings with just four regular season games remaining.  Southern Indiana, Northern Kentucky and KWC all have conference records of 10-4 and are in a 3-way tie for second in the GLVC East. Bellarmine has head-to-head matches with all three in the next two weeks.

Next up for Bellarmine is a rematch with the 22nd-ranked Indianapolis Greyhounds, who gave the Knights their lone loss of the season in December.  The rematch is slated for Saturday night in Knights Hall with an 8 p.m. tip.

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