SIOUX FALLS, S.D.—In one of its most convincing wins of the season, No. 2 Bellarmine trounced No. 11 Colorado School of Mines 92-72 in today's NCAA Division II Championship Tournament national quarterfinals at the Sanford Pentagon. The win propels the Knights into the national semifinals against Fairmont State.
The fourth-seeded Knights took control a little over two minutes into the game, taking their first lead on a triple by senior
Rusty Troutman. Moments later fellow senior
George Knott canned another trey to give the Knights a 10-6 lead, and Bellarmine would not trail the rest of the game.
Led by sophomore
Adam Eberhard, who finished with 26 points, Bellarmine's offense started cranking up and steamrolled into the locker room at halftime with a 55-39 advantage after shooting 65.5 percent from the field.
The Knights put an exclamation point on the first period with a perfectly executed play. With time winding down in the first half, the Orediggers missed a shot and Bellarmine grabbed the rebound. However, rather than just allow the time to expire, the Knights called timeout with just 2.2 seconds remaining.
Needing to go the length of the court in a short time span, Coach
Scott Davenport drew up a the perfect play. Eberhard threw a baseball-type pass to Troutman beyond the midcourt stripe, and he immediately threw to
Brent Bach who nailed a deep three as time expired.
"He hit a bomb," Davenport said of Bach. "Truth be told, I think he was a little deeper than the way we drew it up."
The Knights picked up where they left off by opening the second half with a 9-0 run to establish a 25-point lead. Mines never recovered or mounted a serious comeback as Bellarmine led by as many as 29 in second period.
"I'm incredibly proud of our guys because they played as a team, reflective of our 25 assists on 33 made baskets," said Davenport. "The one thing this team embraces is we defend as a team…and we were playing with a low post and perimeter game a very tough matchup."
The Bellarmine defense limited the Orediggers to just 37.1 percent shooting, and they came into the tournament shooting 56 percent in the postseason.
Eberhard was nearly perfect on the day, hitting 10 of 12 shots while hauling in six rebounds and dishing out a team-high six assists. Junior guard
Jarek Coles was perfect on the day—at least shooting the basketball—as he came off the bench to make all three of his field goal attempts, including one from beyond the arc, and all four of his free throws to finish with 11 points.
There were no shortage of solid performances by the Knights as 10 different players scored. Freshman
Ben Weyer made his presence felt by contributing 11 points, seven rebounds and swatting three Oredigger shots while
Tyler Jenkins added seven points, five assists and three steals. Senior
Al Davis turned in another impressive floor game with eight points, four assists and three steals.
The Knights improved to 32-3 on season, with that win total representing the second-most in school history.
Colorado Mines, the No. 5 seed in the Elite 8, finishes its season at 30-5. Luke Schroepfer paced the Oredigger offense today with 18 points while All-American Gokul Natesen contributed 14.
After the game, Mines Head Coach Pryor Orser had high praise for the Knights. "No one plays like them in college basketball," he said. "They are a throwback team; they did what we did to teams in our league. They are just unbelievable. They are the best in the country at what they do."
The Knights now move on to the play the top-seeded Fairmont Fighting Falcons in tomorrow's first semifinal game that will tip at 6 p.m. CDT (7 p.m. EDT). Fairmont thrashed Rollins 86-68 in today's first quarter final game. Tomorrow's semifinals will be televised to a national audience on CBS Sports Network with Steve Lappas and Andrew Catalon on the call.
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