LOUISVILLE, Ky.-The Bellarmine University men's basketball team opened its 2015-16 season today with a 71-55 loss to the University of Louisville in the KFC Yum! Center on Sunday afternoon.

The Knights, who are ranked No. 4 in the preseason DII NABC Poll, suffered from 32 percent shooting while the Cardinals knocked home nearly 50 percent of their second half shots to extend a 32-26 halftime lead into a 16-point differential at the final horn.

Bellarmine's Josh Derksen led all scorers with 20 points, and Louisville was paced by Jaylen Johnson's 14 points and 10 rebounds. Mangok Mathiang added 10 boards for the Cardinals.

George Suggs and Rusty Troutman chipped in 11 apiece for the Knights, and Troutman was the top Bellarmine rebounder with seven.

The exhibition afforded both coaches the opportunity to get experience for their bench players with a total of 31 players seeing action.

Bellarmine Coach Scott Davenport said his squad is already a better team because of the game. "I asked our guys (after the game), 'are we better than we were at 1:30'? To a man, they said 'yes, absolutely.'" From our standpoint, we can't thank Coach Pitino and Tom Jurich and the University of Louisville enough," Davenport said. "We have to give them credit because we cannot simulate their strength and length in practice."

The Bellarmine head coach went on to joke that his team's poor free throw shooting must have been outstanding coaching by Rick Pitino. "This is the best free throw shooting team I have ever coached in my life. It really is. We chart them every day. We chart them in individual instruction and pre-game, and they are the best. So it must be his (Pitino's) Hall of Fame coaching that kept us 18 for 28 from the line and missing five front ends of the bonus."

Coach Pitino credited his team's defense as the biggest difference in the game. "Well, I'm a little surprised that we played that well defensively," he said. "We tried to do a number of things with switching. I wasn't sure how it'd work against such a good passing team and shooting team but it worked very well. Our bigs did not get beat and the guards did not get hurt in the low post which was a little surprising to me. When you hold Bellarmine to 10 assists in a game and 32 percent (shooting) you've played good defense."

The Hall of Famer also offered his insights on the 2015-16 Knights. "I think they have a great shot at being a Final Four team again," he said. They are one of the best passing and shooting teams in the nation. They're fun to watch, and it's a great game for us to work on our defense."

Bellarmine will get two more chances to compete against high-level Division I talent with exhibitions scheduled for Saturday at Cincinnati and next Monday at Indiana. The game time for the Cincinnati contest, which was just announced today, will be noon. Bellarmine and IU will tip at 7 p.m. in Bloomington.

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