Box Score MEMPHIS, Tenn.—The No. 5 Bellarmine University Knights faced perhaps their toughest test of the 2014-15 season tonight, but came away with a gritty 74-69 road win over the 18^th-ranked Christian Brothers Buccaneers.

The Knights, who improved to 4-0 on the season, gutted out a 30-28 halftime lead, then turned in an outstanding second half performance to build a lead that reached double digits and held on for the five point victory.

Jake Thelen delivered his third double-double of the season with 16 points and 10 rebounds, and Rusty Troutman was just one rebound shy with 15 points and nine boards.

"We just absolutely opened our chests up and poured our hearts out on this court tonight," said Bellarmine Coach Scott Davenport. "I'm incredibly proud of these young men."   

"My hat's off to our players tonight," Davenport added. "That second half of basketball was great on both ends.  Our goal defensively was to keep them under 40 percent shooting, and they shoot 39.5 after shooting 48 percent in the first half.  Then we had 16 made baskets on 14 assists and shoot 66 percent.  They were yelling in (the locker room), 'That's Bellarmine basketball.' It's much better for it to come from them than from me," Davenport said.

The homestanding Bucs got another outstanding game from guard Trey Casey.  The senior guard poured in 29 points to raise his season average to 26.7.  Despite nailing five of his eight treys, the Cincinnati native actually had an off night from long range by his standards as he's made 17 of 24 on the year for 70.8 percent.

Bellarmine was slow out of the gate, falling behind 5-0 before George Suggs made a bucket at the 16:49 mark to get the Knights on the board and begin a 9-0 run.   BU would go on to build a nine-point lead in the first period, but Christian Brothers closed the first half on a 10-3 run to close the gap to just two at the break.

Christian Brothers opened the second period with Charlie Oswald drilling a trey to give the lead back to the home team.  After trading buckets the Knights gradually started building a lead after Josh Derksen connected from long distance. 

Although the Bucs fought back to tie it at 51-51 the Knights answered with an 11-1 run capped by a Troutman three at the 7:44 mark.  Down the stretch, Bellarmine simply remained resilient, shaking off several missed free throws late, to pull out the win.

Davenport said that "he loved his depth" in this game, and the statistics reveal why.  Probably the most telling stat was that nine different players saw action for the Knights, and all nine recorded at least one assist.  Bellarmine ended with 21 assists on 28 made baskets, and that outstanding passing resulted in 51.9 percent shooting for the game after the Knights connected on just 12 of 30 field goals in the first half.

While Christian Brothers (2-1) got 42 percent of its scoring from Casey, the Knights used a balanced attack with four players in double figures and another with nine.  Bellarmine also did excellent work on the backboard tonight, outrebounding the Bucs 37-27. 

The Knights get a very short Thanksgiving break, coming back on Friday to play Cedarville in the Bill Joergens Memorial Classic at the University of Southern Indiana.  Bellarmine then plays its fourth game in less than a week on Saturday with its second game in the Classic, taking on Indiana University East.
 
BOX SCORE (HTM)