Bellarmine falls 67-61 at Drury in Sweet 16 - wave3.com-Louisville News, Weather & Sports

Knights fall in Midwest Championship, 67-61 to Drury

3/19/2013 | Men's Basketball | Box Score

SPRINGIFELD, Mo. – The No. 14 Bellarmine University men's basketball team had their season end abruptly on Tuesday evening as the Knights fell to No. 7 Drury University 67-61 in the NCAA Division II Midwest Regional Championship in front of a crowd of 2,676 at the O'Reilly Family Events Center.
 
The win advanced the Panthers (28-4) to the Elite Eight national quarterfinals, to be played on March 28 in Louisville's Freedom Hall at approximately 8:30 p.m.  They will face the winner of the Southeast Regional, No. 20 South Carolina Aiken (25-7).
 
"This was a great college basketball game, and we played as hard as we could tonight," Bellarmine Head Coach Scott Davenport said.  "The difference in tonight's game was our 19 turnovers led to (Drury) getting 12 more shots than us."
 
The Knights (24-8) took their first lead of the game with a Jake Thelen layup to go ahead 47-46 with 7:24 remaining in the contest.  Bellarmine extended the lead on the very next possession as Vance Hall's steal resulted in a Hall three-pointer assisted by Chris Dowe, who led the Knights in scoring with 20 points.
 
Drury (28-4) responded to the deficit with a 12-1 run to put the game away, highlighted by a pair of three-pointers by Alex Hall, who finished the game with 15 points off 5-16 shooting.
 
The game was the final one in a Bellarmine uniform for Dowe, a Louisville native who earned Midwest Regional All-Tournament honors for the third consecutive season, and fellow senior Jelani Johnson, whose eight rebounds tied for a game-high.
 
"We came a long way as a team this season," Dowe said.  "With eight new players, I think we really came together and played our best basketball during the tournament."
 
Drury's Brandon Lockhart wrapped up Most Outstanding Player honors with a game-high 21 points, and was joined on the all-tournament squad by Alex Hall, Bellarmine's Vance Hall, and Michigan Tech's Ali Haidar.
 
Junior Keisten Jones was the other BU player in double figures, with 11 points.  Vance Hall completed his first season in the Derby City with nine points off 3-8 shooting from beyond the arc.
 
Bellarmine was outrebounded 36-27 on the night, but outshot the Panthers 51.2 percent (22-43), compared to 40.0 percent (22-55) for Drury.  Of the 19 Bellarmine turnovers, 13 of them were steals by Drury, who outscored the Knights 24-13 off miscues.
 
Some end of season milestones for the Knights include:
 
- Dowe finished his career with 132 games played, which is the 2nd most all-time (Braydon Hobbs, 133).
 
- Dowe's 20 points gave him 1,731 for his career, which put him in 5th place on the Bellarmine all-time scoring list.
 
- Vance Hall set the single-season free throw percentage record, shooting 91.4 percent (96-105) from the charity stripe.