EVANSVILLE, Ind.—A slow start doomed the Bellarmine University women's basketball team as they fell 87-62 to the Drury Panthers in the semifinals of the Deaconess Great Lakes Valley Conference Championship Tournament on Saturday night in the Ford Center.
The top-seeded Panthers jumped out to an early 7-2 lead, and the fourth-seeded Knights never mounted a serious challenge as Drury dominated nearly every facet of the game.
"The last two times we played Drury they've really come out and just played balls to the wall," said Bellarmine Coach
Chancellor Dugan. "They came out in the first five minutes and played like they were 10 down, and their intensity and their effort for that full first quarter was not matched by ours, and that's something we have to work on and get better at."
"We gave up 10 offensive rebounds and 13 second chance points in the first half, and you just can't do that and expect to stay in the game playing the number one team in our league," Dugan added.
The Panthers' lead after the first quarter was 10 at 27-17, and the by halftime the margin had grown to 47-28 as Drury shot 53 percent over the first 20 minutes while the Knights hit less than 40 percent and turned the ball over 10 times.
After the break, the Bellarmine defense held Drury without a basket for nearly five minutes, but the Knights couldn't make up much ground with two turnovers and missed shot in three of their first four second half possessions.
The Panthers went on to extend their lead to 68-43 after three periods with Bellarmine finally managing to keep pace with Drury in the fourth quarter as the final margin was 25.
For the game, the Panthers enjoyed a 41-32 rebounding advantage and turned 22 Bellarmine turnovers into 28 points.
The Knights shot 50 percent in the second half to up their shooting accuracy to 44.9 percent for the game, but made just four of 13 from beyond the arc.
Raven Merriweather scored 11, and
Mikayla Berry added 10 as they were the only Knights to reach double digits.
Four Panthers reached double digits with guard Heather Harman dropping in 19 to lead all scorers.
Drury, ranked No. 4 nationally, improves to 27-3 on the season and will meet Lewis in tomorrow's GLVC final.
Bellarmine, ranked No. 23 in the WBCA poll, slips to 22-7 overall and now must await the NCAA selection show on Sunday to learn its NCAA tournament fate.
The Knights entered the week ranked No. 6 in the Midwest region, and figure to remain in the top eight that will earn spots in the NCAA tourney. However, the Great Midwest Conference champion Malone will get an automatic bid, and previously it had not been ranked in the top eight.
The NCAA selection show will be Sunday at 10 p.m. and streamed online at NCAA.com.
For more coverage of Bellarmine athletics, follow us on Twitter (@BUKnights), Instagram (BUKnights), Facebook (BUKnights) and the BUKnights mobile app available for iPhone and Android.
BOX SCORE (HTM)
