ST. LOUIS—The top-ranked Bellarmine Knights outfought the host Missouri-St. Louis Tritons 66-53 in a defensive battle in Great Lakes Valley Conference play in the Mark Twain Building on Thursday night.
Bellarmine was held to a season-low 38.2 percent shooting, but the Knights' defense allowed just 38 percent shooting to the Tritons, and BU took advantage of its free throws to put the game away in the final minutes.
Missouri-St. Louis led nearly the entire first half until the Knights strung together a 10-0 run to take the lead and held a 32-30 advantage at the break. After halftime, the Tritons couldn't wrestle the lead away from Bellarmine despite keeping the score close by making nine 3-pointers in the game.
Bellarmine was just four of 19 from behind the arc, but converted 20 of 22 charity tosses to keep the Tritons at bay.
"The effort and tenacity of our players was phenomenal," said Bellarmine Coach
Scott Davenport. "The basketball execution was something I had not seen in a long time. How about this stat…in the second half we were one of 15 on challenged shots and on open shots we're 10 of 12. Our player movement and ball movement were not very good tonight…but give Missouri-St. Louis a tremendous amount of credit."
Bellarmine's
Adam Eberhard led all scorers with 24 points and added seven rebounds to tie
Ben Weyer for team-high honors.
Parker Chitty and
Daniel Ramser each had three assists to pace the Knights in that category.
Missouri-St. Louis got 23 points from Johnathan Matthews and Jose Grubbs grabbed eight boards to lead the Tritons.
Bellarmine improves to 11-0 on the season and ups its GLVC mark to 2-0 with both wins coming on the road. Missouri-St. Louis falls for just the third time in 13 games and dips to 1-2 in league play.
The Knights remain on the road for their next game, which comes Saturday afternoon against Maryville, which dropped an 80-75 decision to Southern Indiana on Thursday.
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