Box Score EVANSVILLE, Ind.—The No. 3 Bellarmine University men's basketball team shook off a sluggish start and blew past the King Tornado 84-71 tonight in the Bill Joergens Memorial Classic at the University of Southern Indiana's Physical Activities Center.

The Knights scored the first bucket of the game—a three by Keisten Jones—but the Tornado, who came into the game leading the nation in 3-pointers, dropped in four unanswered treys to take a 12-3 lead, prompting Coach Davenport to insert five substitutes just 2:44 into the game.  Led by a hot-shooting Rusty Troutman, the second five led the Knights on a 19-2 run to turn a nine-point deficit into an 8-point lead 22-14.

Bellarmine maintained that lead until halftime and went into the intermission leading 46-38.  King struck first in the second period, draining a three to get within five, but could get no closer the rest of the way.  Bellarmine extended their lead to 17 with 3:29 remaining and coasted in for the 13-point victory with Jones putting an exclamation point on the win with an alley-oop dunk off a pass from Vance Hall.

"I'm very proud of the guys," said Bellarmine Coach Scott Davenport. "(King) is an NCAA tournament team."  He also was pleased with the play of the reserves.  "I don't call them the second unit;  they're just guys who didn't start.  They do it every day; they're all good players.  I was happy with the way our guys responded. One of our goals at halftime was to hold them under 40 percent shooting in the second half, and they shot 36."

Bellarmine tied a school record with 15 treys on the night to match the output of King treys.  However, the Knights needed just 28 attempts from beyond the arc while the Tornado pulled the trigger 41 times from downtown.

The Knights recorded yet another hot shooting game finishing 27 of 47 from the field for 57.4 percent.  Leading the way was senior Keisten Jones, who recorded 22 points and was a perfect 7-of-7 from the field, including three from long range.  The senior out of Louisville's Ballard High School now has 998 career points, needing just two to become Bellarmine's 35^th 1,000-point scorer.

Troutman finished with a career high 18 points on 7-of-9 shooting, and Hall and Josh Derksen also hit double digits with 12 and 11 points respectively.

The statistic that pleased Davenport, however, was 21 assists on the 27 made baskets.  The ninth-year head coach pointed out that 12 Bellarmine players saw action and nine had at least one assist.

The Knights improve to 4-0 on the season while King falls to 2-4, with three of their losses coming at the hands of top 20 teams.

Bellarmine gets a bit of a break before returning to action on Dec. 9 in Knights Hall.

BOX SCORE (HTM)