LOUISVILLE, Ky.—The Bellarmine Knights men's basketball team entertains Kennesaw State on Saturday at 7 p.m. in ASUN Conference action in Freedom Hall.
 
The game marks the next-to-last "ASUN crossover" contest in which Bellarmine plays teams from the East Division. 
 
Both teams enter Saturday's contest looking to rebound from losses on Thursday. The Knights fell to East Division-leading Liberty as BU suffered its first home conference loss of the year.  The Owls, meanwhile, lost a triple overtime thriller at Eastern Kentucky.
 
Bellarmine (13-10, 7-2 ASUN) sits in second place in the West Division of the conference while Kennesaw State (9-13, 4-5 ASUN) is one of three teams tied for third in the East.
 
CJ Fleming has shouldered more of the scoring load in the recent outings, and the graduate student from Cincinnati is averaging 13.4 points per game.  Senior Dylan Penn continues to pace the Knights' offense in scoring and assists, ranking third in the conference in both statistics with averages of 17.2 and 4.9 respectively. Juston Betz, another of Bellarmine's graduate students, is hauling in seven rebounds a game to lead the Knights and rank fourth in the ASUN. 
 
Bellarmine, which has averaged just 6.1 turnovers a game in its last seven games, will be challenged to take care of the ball against the Owls as KSU ranks second in the league in steals (7.91 per game) and third in turnover margin (+2.55).
 
Kennesaw State is exceeding preseason predictions in 2021-22. The Owls were picked to finish 11th in the 12-team league by the coaches and 12th by the media, but Coach Amir Abdur-Rahim has his squad in the middle of the pack over halfway through the ASUN slate.
 
The Owls' strong showing in 2021-22 shouldn't be a big surprise, however, as KSU returned almost 94 percent of its scoring from last year. 
 
While Spencer Rodgers paced the offense last year at 16.3 points a game, this year, Chris Youngblood is the top scorer at 13.5 ppg.  A member of the ASUN All-Freshman Team last year, the 6-4, 218-pound Youngblood also leads the Owls with a 5.7 rebounding average.
 
Another strong returner is guard Terrell Burden who averages 11.7 points and dishes out 4.7 assists per game, best on the team and fourth-best in the conference.
 
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