Bellarmine University’s final exam week for the fall 2022 semester officially runs Dec. 9-16, meaning the men’s basketball team will face tests both in the classroom and on the hardwood in the coming days.
The test on the hardwood comes Saturday against the always-tough Murray State Racers in a game set for a 4 p.m. tip at Freedom Hall.
Although the Knights and Racers met last season in Murray, looking to those results as a hint for what to expect on Saturday could be a waste of time. Much has changed-for both programs-in the 12-plus months since last year’s meeting, which the Racers won 78-59.
The 2023-23 Murray State Racers have been completely overhauled with only two players from last year’s team appearing on this year’s roster. The coaching staff is new, too-sort of. Matt McMahon, who started his tenure at Murray as an assistant under Steve Prohm, left the Racer program to take over at LSU. However, Murray State was able to re-sign Prohm as head coach after he had spent six seasons at Iowa State.
Another thing new for Murray this year is conference affiliation. After nearly three-quarters of a century as a stalwart in the Ohio Valley Conference, the Racers left for a new valley-the Missouri Valley.
One thing that hasn’t changed for Murray is winning basketball games. The Racers, who notched 31 victories year ago, are off to a 5-3 this season including a pair of overtime wins in their first two conference games of the season-versus Illinois State and at Valparaiso.
Coach Prohm has weaved in four transfer students along with returner D.J. Burns to create a solid starting five. Jamari Smith, a Division II All-American at Queens last year, is the team’s leading scorer at 17.1 points per game. Rob Perry, who Bellarmine fans will remember as a standout at Stetson, is Murray’s second leading scorer and top 3-point shooter, averaging 16.5 points while shooting better than 40 percent from deep. Point guard JaCobi Wood, who played at Belmont last year, is the team’s top playmaker at 4.6 assists while scoring at a 12.6 points per game clip. Tennessee Tech transfer Kenny White, Jr., adds 10.1 points, and Burns is the top Racer rebounder at 8.3 per contest.
While the changes haven’t been quite as significant for the Knights, Bellarmine Coach Scott Davenport has reshuffled his lineup to replace 57 percent of last year’s scoring. To date, multiple players have stepped up to shoulder the scoring load. Six different Knights have been the team’s leading scorer in BU’s first 10 games: Garrett Tipton, Peter Suder, Bash Wieland, Curt Hopf, Ben Johnson, and Jaylen Fairman.
Bellarmine opened its 2022-23 season much like it did a year ago-with an aggressive and challenging month of November. After playing five teams (including Murray) that ended the year ranked in the nation’s top 25 last November, the Knights tackled five teams from Power 5 conferences-all on the road this November.
Once the calendar flipped to December, Bellarmine (4-6) finally got a chance to play in its home arena, Freedom Hall. The Knights seemed to like the atmosphere, rolling to huge victories over Alice Lloyd and Wabash while shooting 54.8 percent in the building, including a sensational 59 percent from 3-point range.
Hopf enters Saturday’s game as BU’s leading scorer at 10.1 points per game. He notched his career-high of 16 points against UCLA and followed that up with a 15-point performance against Kentucky. Redshirt freshmen Ben Johnson and Jaylen Fairman paced the Knights in the two games at Freedom Hall. Johnson scorched the nets for 31 points against Alice Lloyd while tying the program record with nine treys in the game. Fairman, meanwhile, established his new career-high with 16 points against Wabash.
Juston Betz, the 2022-23 ASUN Preseason Defensive Player of the Year, is leading the Knights in rebounding at 4.8 per contest and is the leading assist man on the team with a 2.9 average.
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