LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The magic inside Knights Hall Thursday night unfortunately would not carry over to Saturday afternoon for the Bellarmine men's basketball team. The Knights struggled to stop visiting North Alabama in a high-octane second half as they fell 82-73.
 
Bellarmine (6-10, 1-3 ASUN) shot 51.9 percent for the game to match their season average and 39.3 percent from deep to beat their season average of .360. Still, it would not be enough to fend off hot-shooting North Alabama (6-9, 1-3 ASUN), who hit 54.0 percent of their attempts, including 52.4 percent from deep, and earned their first conference win. UNA entered shooting 42.0 percent overall and 30.5 percent from three.
 
The Knights came out hot, connecting on their first five field goal attempts with the help of five assists in their first five possessions to race out to a 16-6 lead. The stretch included a pair of threes by Kenyon Goodin and one each from Jack Karasinski and Sam Donald.
 
As hot as Bellarmine started, UNA started equally as slow, missing eight of their first 10 attempts, though the two makes were threes.
 
Still, after trailing 20-8, the Lions battled back with a 17-4 run to take a 25-24 advantage after a rare cold spell from the Knights in which they missed seven of nine shots and went 0 for 5 from three.
 
Bellarmine finally answered with a Goodin corner three on an inbound underneath out of a timeout to retake a 27-25 lead before going into the locker room with a 33-32 lead.
 
Both teams came out hot in the second half as UNA took a 51-46 lead at the first media timeout after an 19-13 run. The Lions hit 7 of 9 shots to start the second stanza including 4 of 5 threes, three of which came from sixth-year senior Dallas Howell. The Knights went 6 for 8 in the same stretch, but hit just one three-pointer.
 
The Lions would continue to build their lead to as many as 17 at 66-49.
 
Four consecutive made field goals as part of a 9-3 run by Bellarmine would give the home team a little life before Howell drained another corner three to make it 72-58 with 5:21 to go. The Knights then suffered a shot clock violation on the other end before Howell sank a three from the other corner to put the lead back to 17.
 
Bellarmine would have one last run in them as a pair of Karasinski layups and a Brian Waddell three cut the lead to 10 at 75-65 with 72 seconds remaining. But, as the Knights pressed out of a timeout, a Corneilous Williams dunk on the other end would all but seal it for UNA despite a pair of threes in the final 39 seconds by Donovan Hunter.
 
UNA was 7 for 10 from deep and shot 65.4 percent overall from the floor in the second stanza to outscore Bellarmine 50-40.
 
Waddell totaled 20 points on the afternoon, his third time hitting that mark and first in conference play. The ASUN's leading shooter connected on 8 of 10 shots and matched his career high of two made threes. Karasinski and Goodin finished with 17 points apiece. For Karasinski, the ASUN's leading scorer, it was his second straight 17-point performance after seven consecutive games totaling at least 20. Goodin has now scored double digits in seven straight.
 
Howell finished with a game-high 24 for the Lions after connecting on 8 of 9 threes. Williams added 20 points and grabbed a season-high 15 rebounds—just four fewer than Bellarmine as a team—to give him his sixth double-double on the season, and his first in ASUN play. Canin Jefferson (17 points) and Cortez Graham-Howard (10 points) also reached double digits.
 
Up next, Bellarmine hits the road for four straight starting with Lipscomb next Thursday in Nashville at 8 p.m. ET (7 p.m. CT).
 
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