LOUISVILLE, Ky.—After a one-game ASUN Conference road trip over the weekend, the Bellarmine Knights are back in action Tuesday in Freedom Hall when they host the University of North Alabama at 7 p.m.
 
Bellarmine (9-8) improved to 3-0 in league play on Saturday with a 77-71 victory over Lipscomb University in Nashville while the Lions (8-9) fell in overtime on the road at Central Arkansas to drop to 1-3 in league play.
 
After playing arguably the toughest schedule in the nation to open their season, the Knights have won seven of nine games since Dec. 1 including all three of their games in calendar year 2022. 
 
Senior preseason All-ASUN selection Dylan Penn has paced the offensive attack all year for Bellarmine and currently ranks third in the league in scoring at 17 points a game and is second in assists with a 5.4 average.  Last week, Penn turned in two of his best performances of the year.  On Tuesday, he poured in a career-high 38 points while tying Joe Reibel's 62-year-old school record with 18 field goals in the game. Penn followed that up by scoring 25—including his career 1,000th point—and dishing out eight assists at Lipscomb.
 
However, Coach Scott Davenport has gotten production from throughout his lineup this season. For example, against Eastern Kentucky in BU's ASUN opener, Penn was held scoreless, but Alec Pfriem, CJ Fleming and Curt Hopf all tossed in career highs to lift the team to victory. Juston Betz, meanwhile, has emerged as Bellarmine's top rebounder and ranks third in the ASUN, averaging 6.6 boards per game.
 
North Alabama is coming off a pair of 1-point games in ASUN play last week. Last Tuesday, UNA got a pair of late free throws then watched as Eastern Kentucky missed a last second shot to hold on for a 76-75 victory over the Colonels. On Saturday, however, the Lions suffered an agonizing 89-88 overtime loss to the home-standing Central Arkansas Bears. The visiting Lions led by seven with 51.3 seconds remaining in regulation and by six with 53.9 to play in the first overtime but couldn't hold the lead as the Bears rallied to tie in regulation and snatch the victory in OT.
 
Fourth year coach Tony Pujol has relied on a balanced scoring attack this year with leading scorer Daniel Ortiz (11.2 ppg) coming off the bench for most the season. The freshman guard has started the last three games for the Lions and performed well, averaging 18.7 points as a starter.   
 
The second- and third-leading scorers for UNA are also guards with Jamari Blackmon contributing 10.1 points a game and C.J. Brim adding 9.8.
Other top backcourt performers include Will Soucie, who is coming off a 23-point performance, and Detalian Brown, who netted 16 points in his last outing.  Brown's career high (22 points) came against the Knights last season.
 
Top frontcourt players for the Lions include 6-10 Damian Forrest, who leads UNA in rebounding with a 6.4 average, and 6-6 junior Isaac Chapman, who has started 16 games and hauls in 4.2 boards per game. Payton Youngblood, a 6-5 forward who shoots 46 percent from long range is averaging 8.5 points per game but hasn't played since UNA's Jan. 4 game at Lipscomb.
 
As a team, the Lions shoot just 40.6 percent from the field, but 43 percent of all UNA field goal attempts have come from long range this year, and they average 9.4 made 3-pointers per game.