JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — In the Bellarmine University men's basketball team's first-ever ASUN Conference Championship game, the second-seeded Knights statistically had several advantages over 7-seed Stetson.
However, the rebounding margin heavily favored the Hatters, and that ultimately led to the Knights' undoing in a 73-70 loss in the quarterfinals at UNF Arena.
Stetson (11-13) outrebounded Bellarmine (13-7) by a final tally of 37-20. The Hatters amassed 13 offensive rebounds, with Knights Coach
Scott Davenport noting they retained the ball on 45 percent of their missed shots.
"That's the difference in the game — no if's, and's or but's," Davenport said.
From a competitive standpoint, it was an exceptional contest. The first half was back and forth as the teams continuously traded runs, but the second half was tight throughout and seemed headed for the close finish that indeed unfolded.
With less than a minute left, senior guard
CJ Fleming blocked a Stetson 3-point attempt and converted a drive to give Bellarmine a 70-69 lead with 42 seconds left. The Hatters then missed a jumper, but Mahamadou Diawara grabbed his fifth offensive rebound and made a go-ahead putback.
Bellarmine got a great look with less than 5 seconds left, but the Knights missed the layup and Diawara hauled in the rebound. He was fouled and missed both shots, but Bellarmine didn't connect on a long baseball pass after a timeout as the Hatters pulled it out.
Junior guard
Dylan Penn paced Bellarmine with 19 points and was unstoppable for much of the second half. He went 9-of-14 from the floor and had five assists. Fleming nailed all four of his 3-point attempts, and 7-of-10 shots overall, in scoring 18 points and junior guard
Pedro Bradshaw added 10. Junior guard
Juston Betz tallied seven points on 3-for-3 shooting and had five assists, three steals and a team-high six rebounds.
Bellarmine shot 55.1 percent to the 48.2 of Stetson, but the lopsided rebounding led to seven more shots taken by the Hatters, which proved critical in the one-possession loss for the Knights.
As far as the season continuing, Davenport said that will be determined later.
"There's still a couple tournaments out there — who knows," he said.
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