The Bellarmine Knights have been storming Men’s Division II basketball this year and will take their national #2 seed into their conference tournament, the Great Lakes Valley Championship on March 4, where they have garnered the number one tournament seed and stand as the favorite.
The championship series kicks off in St. Louis on Friday at Maryville University. The Knights have earned their place there after defeating, in the first round, (12) Rockhurst. Louisville’s Bellarmine will face off against either (5) Kentucky Wesleyan or (4) Northern Kentucky on Saturday depending on the outcome of that game the preceding afternoon.
The Knight’s next game is set for a tip off time of 3:30 p.m., March 5. The GLVC Championship game is slated for March 6 at 2 p.m.
Bellarmine’s women’s team lost last Saturday in the women’s GLVC tournament to (2) Wisconsin-Parkside in Wisconsin. Still, the Knights left the court with a solid effort and season.
The Men’s basketball team was showered with awards at the conclusion of the regular season as Jeremy Kendle, a guard for the Knights and native of Jeffersonville, Indiana, was voted Player of the Year and Coach Scott Davenport was named Coach of the Year in the conference. Kendle wasn’t alone on the all conference first team, though, as he was joined by teammate and guard Braydon Hobbes. Davenport, a UofL alumni, is currently in his sixth year as the Knight’s head coach and has proven to be one of the most successful in the sixty-one year history of the men’s basketball team. Like Adolph Rupp did with Kentucky so many years ago, Davenport has managed to create a dynasty out of a team using almost entirely local players. Of the current roster, 9 of the 17 athletes on the team are from the Kentuckiana area.
Bellarmine, whose enrollment is about 3,000 students, has reached the NCAA tournament eleven times including last year.
Source: Basketball Championship. Bellarmine University Knights. Retrieved February 28, 2011, from http://athletics.bellarmine.edu/
Image: Bellarmine University/ www.athletics.bellarmine.edu
