LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The Bellarmine men's basketball team officially embarks on its 2021-22 season on Tuesday night when the Knights travel to West Lafayette, Indiana for a 7 p.m. matchup with the 7th-ranked Purdue Boilermakers.

Bellarmine is in its second year of its transition to NCAA Division I and is coming off a season that saw the Knights exceed many prognosticators' predictions by going 14-8 and finishing second in the ASUN standings with a 10-3 record.
 
This year, Bellarmine will not have the element of surprise as league coaches and media representatives have predicted the Knights third and fourth respectively in preseason polls. 
 
Bellarmine welcomes back practically its entire roster from last year. The biggest loss is Pedro Bradshaw, who pursued a professional career and is currently playing for the Salt Lake City Stars in the NBA's G-League.
 
Coach Scott Davenport, who enters his 17th year at the helm for the Knights, welcomes back four starters:  Ethan Claycomb, CJ Fleming, Dylann Penn, and Nick Thelen.  Penn is the most heralded of the quartet as he earned 1st Team All-ASUN accolades last year was a preseason all-conference selection this year.
 
In addition to the wealth of returning talent, Bellarmine welcomes five true freshmen to the team.  Guard Ben Johnson (Lexington) and forward Ayden Mudd (Louisville) hail from Kentucky, while guards Landin Hacker (Greenwood) and Jaylen Fairman (Jeffersonville) and forward Curt Hopf (Montgomery) are from Indiana.
 
Bellarmine comes into the Purdue game with one game under its belt, a 90-87 exhibition win over Division II Tiffin on Oct. 28.  The Dragons pushed the Knights to the limit by hurling 45 3-pointers in the game, connecting on 16 to outscore Bellarmine by 30 points from the 3-point line.  Bellarmine countered with its traditional outstanding shooting and passing, making 59.6 percent of it shots and handing out 19 assists.  Claycomb and Penn paced with the Knights with 19 points apiece.
 
Against Purdue, the Knights face a tall task—both literally and figuratively.  
 
As its preseason AP ranking of No. 7 would indicate, the Boilermakers are expected to be one of the top teams in the country and favorites to win a Big 10 title.  That's the figurative part of the tall task. To see the literal tall task, one simply needs to review the Boilermaker roster which reveals three players 6-10 or over: 7-4 Zach Edey, 6-10 Caleb Furst, and 6-10 Trevion Williams, who is the top returning Boilermaker scorer and rebounder at 15.5 ppg and 9.1 rpg.

The contest will be streamed online by B1G+ with David Weiderhaft and Meghan McKeown on the call while Bellarmine fans can tune into 93.9 The Ville and the get the Knights radio call from Doug Ormay and Mark Bugg.

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