LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The Bellarmine University men's basketball team can check another box.

On Thursday night in Freedom Hall, the Knights captured their first-ever victory in the ASUN Championship, dominating down the stretch in pulling away for a landmark 81-68 win over Florida Gulf Coast University in the quarterfinals.

"This journey since we transitioned to Division I, it's another first. It's a blessing," said senior guard Dylan Penn, who recorded a double-double with 17 points and a career-high-tying 10 assists.

The two-seed from the West Division, Bellarmine (18-13) will travel to meet East one-seed and defending champion Liberty at 6 p.m. (ET) Saturday.

In their inaugural season in D1, the Knights were the ASUN regular-season runner-up and captured a 77-67 win over Army West Point in the postseason College Basketball Invitational. The encore has included a divisional runner-up and their first conference tournament triumph.

"This is not done," Knights Coach Scott Davenport said of the immediate D1 success. "Those guys all wanted the same thing and were willing to do whatever it took to get it done."

The second half ranked among Bellarmine's best of the season — considering the stage, it would be hard to argue there was a better 20 minutes of basketball played by the Knights this year. After trailing 38-35 at halftime, Bellarmine outscored FGCU 46-30 in the second stanza. The Knights shot a blistering 62.1 percent after the intermission.

The surgical precision came against a surging FGCU squad (21-11) that had won eight of its last nine games and possessed two of the top players in the league in ASUN Newcomer of the Year Tavian Dunn-Martin and ASUN Defensive Player of the Year Kevin Samuel.  

 "I thought they played better than us tonight," FGCU Coach Michael Fly said. "I thought the first couple minutes after halftime dictated the second half. …I just thought in the second half they were tougher than us and played harder than us. I think that's what got us. They just came out with more energy than us.

"Unfortunately, they played great in the second half and we didn't."

As Fly noted, Bellarmine took control immediately after the break. Senior forward Ethan Claycomb, who registered a season-high 16 points, nailed a 3-pointer fifteen seconds into the half to tie it up. After largely distributing in the first half, Penn canned a triple and converted a drive as the Knights seized a 47-40 lead behind a 12-2 run to open the frame.

With 8:48 left, the contest was knotted at 64 on a 3-pointer by Dunn-Martin, who poured in a game-high 27 points. FGCU would not score again until 2:40 remained in the matchup.

In that time, Bellarmine went on a decisive 14-0 run where a host of players contributed. Claycomb began the burst by sinking a jumper off a feed from Penn, who followed with a basket of his own. Senior guard CJ Fleming, who notched a team-high 19 points, then drilled one of his four 3-pointers.

After that, senior guard Juston Betz, who tallied 10 points and seven rebounds, knocked down a jumper. Fleming then boosted the lead to 11 with another bucket, and finally, freshman forward Curt Hopf, who posted 11 points, buried a baseline 3-pointer that sent Freedom Hall into a frenzy.

"I thought we were going to have a parade," Davenport joked about the bench's reaction after Hopf's triple, his third of the game. "… The second half was beautiful basketball. Again, they just kept feeding off each other."

Davenport praised his frontcourt for its effort defensively in the second half on Samuel, who scored just four points after the break. For the game, he grabbed 10 total rebounds, including eight of the offensive variety, but Hopf and company reduced his impact enough to aide the Knights' ability to pull away.

"That was a huge difference," Davenport said. "(FGCU is) a really, really good basketball team. They create problems very few at this level create. …We just wanted to string together stops, and we knew we'd make a run. And that's what happened."

Bellarmine, which shot 55.2 percent for the game and drained 14 of its 31 3-point attempts, will now set its sights on Liberty.

"It's just another opportunity," Claycomb said. "We're excited to play there Saturday."

As for the atmosphere Thursday evening in Freedom Hall, the Knights walked the floor waving appreciatively to the crowd before heading to the locker room after the historic win.

"If it was a curtain call," Penn said, "it was a good one."

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