LOUISVILLE, Ky. – After a strong start to the second half by the Bellarmine men's basketball team, Stetson was able to pull away late in a tightly contested battle Saturday afternoon to win 81-76 in Knights Hall.
 
After trailing 42-31 at halftime, the Knights used a 13-2 run to open the second 20 minutes to even the game at 44 apiece with less than five minutes gone. The spurt featured a slam by Jack Karasinski on a pick-and-roll with Grant Whitaker to bring the Knights within five before Karasinski pulled the Knights even with a three, drawing perhaps the loudest crowd reaction of the season for Bellarmine.
 
The visitors, though, would pull ahead, but the game would be tied again at 58-58 and then 67-67 with 4:14 left after a driving layup by Myles Watkins.
 
From that point, however, Stetson would use a 14-6 run, hitting 10 of 12 free throws, to pull away and win by the five-point margin, which would have been eight if not for a made three by Kenyon Goodin at the buzzer.
 
Karasinski finished with 21 points, his fourth 20-point effort to tie him with Billy Smith for the team lead. The junior forward connected on 9 of 17 attempts. Smith himself scored 14, as did Goodin to set a new career high. AJ Lux finished with a career-high nine, as well, hitting a pair of threes.
 
The crowd inside Knights Hall would get a taste of the game's competitiveness early on. Bellarmine nailed four of their first seven three-pointers and held a 16-14 advantage with 11:20 left in the first. Still, Stetson went on an 11-1 run that included threes from Josh Massey, Treyton Thompson and Jordan Wood to establish a 25-17 lead.
 
The rest of the first half was played even until the final shot, a step-back, buzzer-beating three by Thompson to give the Hatters a 42-31 halftime lead. The visitors hit 8 of 14 threes in the opening stanza (57.1 percent), including two each from Wood, Thompson and Abramo Canka. The Hatters' 1-of-9 performance from deep in the second half helped fuel the Knights comeback attempt. Stetson would finish the game shooting 47.1 overall from the field to Bellarmine's 44.3. They also outrebounded Bellarmine 42-26.
 
The Knights did connect on 14 of 33 three-point attempts, their highest total against a Division I opponent this season, though they were once again without junior guard Ben Johnson (11.9 PPG), who missed his fourth straight game with an injury.
 
Thompson entered Saturday averaging 3.2 points for Stetson, but finished with a game-high and career-high 23 points on 7-of-8 shooting, going 3 of 4 from deep.
 
Bellarmine now hits the road for four straight games beginning next Thursday, January 30, when they visit Austin Peay at 8 p.m. ET.
 
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