LOUISVILLE, Ky.--With less than 11 minutes remaining in the game, the No. 1 Bellarmine Knights were locked in a tight game with visiting Drury in a Great Lakes Valley Conference game in Knights Hall on Thursday night.  But, after the Panthers' Allen Billinger nailed a 3-pointer to tie the score at 52-52, the Knights erupted for a 22-2 run to put the game away.
 
When the final horn sounded, the Knights had secured an 81-59 victory to extend their home court win streak to 66 games and up their season record to 17-0 and 8-0 in Great Lakes Valley Conference play.
 
The visiting Panthers kept it close by capitalizing on the 3-pointer.  In the first half, Drury hit seven of 14 treys to offset Bellarmine's 61.5 percent shooting and trailed just 42-38 at the break.
 
The Knights picked up their defense in the second period, limiting the Panthers to just three of 14 from beyond the arc.  And, Bellarmine closed with a fury…going 10 of 13 from the field over the final 9:03 to finish the game shooting 63.3 percent, despite hitting just four of 15 triples.
 
"The first 27 minutes of the game, we played defense literally like five one-on-one games," said Bellarmine Coach Scott Davenport. "And Drury is very good.  They're very much like us to defend. Then, it looked like we had seven guys out there in terms of being in gaps, swiping, keeping their man on their chest, active hands."
 
Davenport said, it was the defensive performance that led to their strong offensive finish. "(Our players) drew a line in the sand in terms of defense, and in the run at the end of the game, it was defense leading to offense," he said.
 
Four Knights finished in double digits, led by Adam Eberhard's 22 points.  The Evansville native, who passed Bellarmine great Braydon Hobbs for eighth place on BU's all-time scoring list in Thursday's game, also added nine rebounds and five assists.
 
Alex Cook turned in a double-double for Bellarmine with 17 points and 10 rebounds, and Ben Weyer matched Cook with 17 points.  Chivarsky Corbett was the fourth double-digit scorer nailing a late 3-pointer to finish with 11 points and seven boards. Tyler Jenkins came up just one shy of his career high in assists, dishing out seven while committing just one turnover.
 
Drury suffered its worst loss of the season and fell to 9-10 overall and 3-5 in the GLVC.  Billinger, who finished 5-of-8 from 3-point land, paced the Panthers with 19 points while Andre Ballock chased down a team-high seven rebounds.
 
The Knights owned 54-18 advantage in points in the paint and outrebounded Drury 20-10 in the second period to finish with a 37-23 edge on the glass.
 
Defensively, Bellarmine held Drury below 40 percent shooting as the Panthers finished just 21 of 57 from the field for 36.8 percent.
 
Bellarmine returns to action on Saturday when it hosts Missouri S&T at 3:15 p.m. 
 
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