LOUISVILLE, Ky.—The No. 1 Bellarmine Knights survived an intense battle from No. 22 Indianapolis as the Knights earned a 93-79 victory in a game that secured at least a tie for the Great Lakes Valley Conference regular season title. Bellarmine improved to 22-1 overall and 14-1 in the conference.
The win was Bellarmine's 17th in a row, which is the longest win streak in the 61-year history of Bellarmine men's basketball. It also avenged the Knights' only loss of the season, a 99-94 overtime loss at UIndy on Dec. 1.
Tonight's contest was a hard-fought affair that saw a total of four technical fouls called plus an intentional foul late in the contest as the two top 25 Division II powers locked horns. Bellarmine Coach
Scott Davenport simply attributed the intensity to good teams playing competitively. “It's just two teams playing as hard as they can play in the toughest league in the country,” he said.
The Knights were sloppy at times and committed a season-high 18 turnovers, but won the battle of the backboards 33-30, which was a primary goal because in their first game the Greyhounds outrebounded BU 38-19.
“I'm proud of our guys because we can finish no worse than a tie for the lead in the GLVC final standings, and that was the objective tonight” Davenport said. “If we can learn when we win, then we'll be successful, and that's what we're going to do starting Monday in practice.”
Bellarmine's
Jeremy Kendle led all scorers with 28, and
Braydon Hobbs posted a double-double with 17 points and 10 assists.
Chris Dowe continued his stellar play netting 22 points and hauling in a game-high nine rebounds.
Indianapolis, which fell to 16-7, 9-6 GLVC, placed five players in double figures with Reece Cheatham leading the way with 16.
The game opened going UIndy's way as the Greyhounds hit eight of their first 10 shots in building an 18-11 advantage over the first 5:35 of the game.
Bellarmine then strung together a 9-0 run to take the lead, and after several ties and lead changes, the Knights pulled out to a double digit lead and went in at halftime with a 43-32 advantage.
After the break, Bellarmine eased out to a 21-point lead, but Bellarmine's sloppy play combined with the Greyhounds' determination melted the margin to just nine points at the 8:46 mark.
Bellarmine answered the UIndy run as Dowe put in his own miss, and then
Keisten Jones hit a pair of free throws after Jarrett Hamilton misfired on a quick three. The Knights made it a quick 6-0 run when Kendle got a steal on the defensive end and Dowe drained a pull-up jumper at the 7:34 mark.
The Greyhounds never got the lead back into single digits, but the game stayed competitive if not intense. After
Luke Sprague made a layup, the officials whistled three technical fouls as the teams made their way back to the UIndy end of the floor. The Greyhounds' Cody Vest was “T-ed” up along with
Jelani Johnson and
Jeremy Kendle.
After Hobbs made both technical free throws and Cheatham made three of four for UIndy, the Hounds retained possession of the ball and Cheatham made two more charity tosses after Sprague was called for a reach in.
Bellarmine brought the ball back up and Kendle tossed a lob for Dowe, who dunked it behind his head. The sellout crowd of 2,450 exploded its approval and supplied the energy that the spree of technical fouls seemed to have drained from the electric environment of Knights Hall.
“This was an incredible environment tonight,” said Davenport. “I would say that next to the Ferris State game (in the NCAA Midwest Regional Finals), this is as good of an environment as I've seen since I've been at Bellarmine.”
Coming down the stretch, the Knights played turnover-free basketball and were solid from the free throw line to seal the victory.
Bellarmine, the best shooting team in the nation, again shot right at their average, making 30 of 53 from the field for 56.6 percent. The Knights were uncharacteristically bad from long range, however. Coming in to the game they were second in the country at 44.1 percent from beyond the arc, but the Greyhounds held the Knights to just four of 14 (28.6 percent) from the 3-point line.
After their hot start to the game, UIndy cooled to just 46 percent shooting on the game.
Bellarmine is down to just three regular season games remaining, and all are against top 20 opponents—Southern Indiana, Kentucky Wesleyan and Northern Kentucky. First up is Southern Indiana on Thursday night in Evansville. Tip is scheduled for a 7:30 p.m. CST (8:30 p.m. EST) tip.
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