Bellarmine Preview

The Men's Basketball team makes its way down to Louisville to take on Bellarmine.

Bellarmine (the Knights) are in their 4th year in Division I.  They have had some decent years, but the last couple years have been pretty rough. They went 8-23 last year and 4-12 in the Atlantic Sun.  Blue Ribbon picked them 8th...ASUN coaches had them 10th and the media had them 11th.

This year they are 0-5.  That includes home losses to VMI (kenpom #342) and Southern Indiana (318),  along with @VCU, @Marshall and @Louisville.

Their current kenpom is 336.

Which would all be something to look forward to, except that last year they beat us by 18 at the Stroh, riding hot shooting that was the best against BG in five years before that.   It was worse than that.  I said they were 8-23, but only 5 of those wins were in D1 and therefore one of those was against BG.

It was probably the low point of the season.

Bellarmine was legit in DII.  They made 22 NCAA tournaments and won it in 2011.  Their coach is Scott Davenport, who has been their 22 years.  He has won 72% of his games. He is 57-67 in DI.

As of today on Kenpom, the Atlantic Sun is the #23 ranked conference and the MAC is #21.

Last year, they flummoxed BG with a packed-in match-uppy zone.  They will need that this year, because they are currently #357 (out of 364) in defensive efficiency.  They are #341 in defensive FG% and #346 in defending the 3FG. They have played at 67 possessions, which is pretty slow.  

Offensively, they are scoring at .99 points per possession, which is below average.  They are a decent shooting team, but turn the ball over a lot and get hardly any offensive rebounds. They are an excellent FT shooting team but don't get to the line very often.

Their leading scorer is Jack Karasinski, a 6'7" F who missed most of last season after a concussion.  He was at William & Mary then. He's scoring 18.3 PPG on 68% 2FG shooting and 50% 3FG shooting. That's in 25 minutes a game.

Ben Johnson was pre-season All-ASUN.  He's 6'3". He's averaging 12.6 PPG on 48% and 31% shooting.  He scored 20 against us last year.

Billy Smith is scoring 10.4 PPG on 64% 2FG shooting and 36% 3FG shooting.  He's 6'7" and started his career at Miami.  Had 16 in last year's game.

Their leading rebounder is Curt Hopf (5.4), he missed all of last season due to injury. Dylan Branson, who transferred from SEMO, leads them with a little over 3 assists per game.

BG will be favored in this one and I hope we are able to turn the tables from last year.  After this one, we next to return to action in Tempe, playing Weber State first.