Rivalry Week begins for the Eastern Kentucky University men’s basketball team as they hit the road to face ASUN Conference in-state rival Bellarmine University in Louisville on Thursday. The Knights will return the trip to play in Richmond on Saturday.
The game is set to begin at 6:30 p.m. ET and will air live on ESPN+. The live radio broadcast of the game is available in the Richmond area on WCYO 100.7 FM, or worldwide on EKUSports.com.
Inside the series, EKU leads the all-time series 4-1. The Colonels won the first three games in the series. As members of the ASUN for the first time, the two teams split a pair of games last year with each winning on their own home court. The Colonels closed the 2021-22 regular season with a 72-58 win over Bellarmine at home on Feb. 26. Jomaru Brown led all scorers with 22 points. Cooper Robb chipped in 14 points. Michael Moreno grabbed a team-high seven rebounds. EKU shot 25-of-51 (49.0 percent) for the game and held Bellarmine to 9-of-29 (31.0 percent) shooting in the first half. The Colonels went 14-of-29 from beyond the arc.
The Colonels, EKU (13-8, 6-2 ASUN) closed out a two-game road trip to Tennessee last week with a 74-59 win at Austin Peay on Saturday. The Colonels never trailed and held the Governors scoreless for the final 5:46 of the game. Devontae Blanton had 20 points, 11 rebounds, four assists and two steals against APSU. Isaiah Cozart added 12 points and six rebounds. Dardan Kapiti contributed nine points, four rebounds, four assists and one block.
The program record for blocks in a season is 122 by the 2004-05 team. The program mark for average blocks in a season was set by the 1983-84 team at 4.41. This year’s squad currently has 101 blocks and is averaging 4.81 per game. Robb is first in the ASUN with 1.86 steals per game. EKU is now fifth in the nation in offensive rebounds with an average of 14.10 per game. The NCAA leader is Saint Peter’s with 14.65 offensive boards per game.
Scouting the opponent, Bellarmine is 9-12 this season and 4-4 in league games. The Knights have wins over Louisville and Murray State and non-conference losses to Morehead State, Clemson, Duke, UCLA and Kentucky. Bellarmine’s ASUN wins have come against North Alabama, Jacksonville State, Florida Gulf Coast, and Austin Peay. The Knights lost at Lipscomb, 69-49, on Saturday. Bellarmine shot just 34 percent from the field and was 2-for-27 (8 percent) from deep. Lipscomb out-rebounded BU 35-29.
Ben Johnson had a team-high 13 points on 5-of-16 shooting from the field and was 1-for-7 from behind the arc. Juston Betz added 10 points and seven rebounds. Garrett Tipton, a 6-foot-4 redshirt senior guard, leads the team in scoring this season with 12.1 points per game. He is shooting 48 percent from the field. Betz, a 6-foot-3 guard, is the top rebounder (5.0 rpg) and leads the team in assists (3.3 apg).
