This Kentucky school is finally eligible for NCAA tourneys. Here’s how it plans to make it.
After a long wait, another Kentucky school is now eligible to participate for NCAA championships at the Division I level.
Starting with the 2024-25 athletic year, Bellarmine University — a private, Catholic school in Louisville — can now compete for D-I national titles.
The Knights began the transition process to full NCAA Division I status with the 2020-21 season. That process included an NCAA mandated four-year period during which Bellarmine could compete in postseason conference tournaments, but not for NCAA championships.
Now that period has ended, and Bellarmine’s 23 varsity sports — the majority of which are members of the ASUN Conference — are all eligible to bring home a Division I national title.
“That process of four years of transition was long, but it makes the opportunity for our student-athletes to represent Bellarmine in the NCAA postseason very special,” Bellarmine athletics director Scott Wiegandt told the Herald-Leader in a Zoom interview. “If it were easy, everyone would do it. Right? We’re excited about this opportunity for all of our sports, across the board.”
A Louisville native who was an All-America pitcher for Bellarmine’s baseball team, Wiegandt became the school’s athletics director in 2005.
What did he learn while guiding his alma mater through the transition process from Division II to full Division I status?
“From my seat, I think what was learned by our department is that we had already operated in this space. The way we go about our business, the way we recruit, the way we talk about fundamental skill development across the board,” Wiegandt said. “… I thought that. But to witness that we were making steps in the right direction and doing it the right way, and doing it with the profile of the Bellarmine student-athlete, I think was reassuring.”
With respect to all of Bellarmine’s sports, the school’s newfound Division I status will attract the most attention on the hardwood, where the Knights have a storied history on both the men’s and women’s sides.
As an NCAA Division II school, Bellarmine made 11 straight men’s basketball postseason trips from 2009 to 2019, including four Final Four appearances. The Knights won the 2011 NCAA Division II men’s basketball championship as a one-seed.
The Bellarmine men’s program also made national news in 2022 when the Knights won the ASUN Tournament, an impressive feat that came without the payoff of advancing to the NCAA Tournament.
Bellarmine’s women’s team also has a proud history. The Knights made 15 all-time appearances in the NCAA Tournament at the D-2 level, reaching the Final Four in 1994.
Now for the first time, men’s basketball coach Scott Davenport (who has been Bellarmine’s coach since 2005) and women’s basketball coach Chancellor Dugan (who has been at her post since 2012) have the chance to guide their programs into the national postseason at the NCAA’s top level.
How are Bellarmine’s men’s, women’s basketball teams shaping up?
Now that both of Bellarmine’s basketball programs are eligible to play in the NCAA Tournament, is it realistic to expect either of those teams to reach March Madness this season?
It will take some work if either Bellarmine squad is to reach the 68-team NCAA Tournament fields in 2025.
Davenport’s men’s team was voted 10th out of 12 teams in the preseason ASUN Conference coaches poll and 11th in the media poll. Since winning the ASUN Tournament in 2022, Bellarmine’s men’s program has gone a combined 23-41 during the last two seasons, although that stretch did include a famous win at Louisville in ex-U of L coach Kenny Payne’s regular season debut.
Bellarmine’s lone representative on the preseason All-ASUN team is redshirt junior guard Ben Johnson, a Lexington Catholic alumnus who was named the 2021 Kentucky Mr. Basketball.
“The guy cares, about everything,” Wiegandt said of Davenport, also a Louisville native who attended U of L.
On the men’s side, the ASUN Conference is firmly a one-bid league. The Knights will almost assuredly have to win the end-of-season conference tournament in order to qualify for the NCAA Tournament.
Dugan’s women’s team is yet to win more than 10 games in a season since moving up to the Division I level four seasons ago. The Knights were slotted eighth out of 12 schools in the preseason ASUN Conference coaches poll and 10th in the media poll.
Two Bellarmine players — graduate student guards Hayley Harrison and Hope Sivori — were named to the preseason All-ASUN team. Harrison previously played at Tennessee-Martin and helped George Rogers Clark to two Sweet 16 trips in high school. Sivori previously played at Western Kentucky and reached the 2018 Sweet 16 state championship game while at Louisville’s Mercy Academy.
In July, Bellarmine announced that Dugan signed a multi-year extension to remain the head coach of Bellarmine’s women’s team.
(Because Bellarmine is a private university, its coaching contracts are not subject to public records requests).
“I see it when I walk through practice, a little different pace about how they go about business, about how they’re going to play,” Wiegandt said. “… I do think we’re going to play a fun brand of basketball on the women’s side to watch.”
Reaching the women’s NCAA Tournament from the ASUN Conference means finding a way to get through Florida Gulf Coast (FGCU). The Eagles are a perennial power who have made seven consecutive NCAA Tournaments and won eight straight editions of the end-of-season ASUN Conference Tournament.
FGCU also won the conference tournament in 2020, before the pandemic forced the cancellation of that year’s March Madness.
Bellarmine basketball to return to Knights Hall this season
Both of Bellarmine’s basketball programs are returning to a familiar home venue this season.
The Knights will play their home basketball games on campus at venerable Knights Hall. Bellarmine basketball had played inside Knights Hall since it opened in 1960, but the program moved from that venue to Freedom Hall — the longtime home of Louisville basketball — at the start of the pandemic due to the increased space available at Freedom Hall.
Earlier this summer, Bellarmine announced the return to Knights Hall would occur “based on feedback from many season ticket holders and donors.”
Last season, Bellarmine’s men’s basketball team played an exhibition game against Transylvania and a regular season game against Eastern Kentucky at Knights Hall.
“(At Knights Hall) the atmosphere was, is and will be electric when our students get over here and start making it hop,” Wiegandt said.
Bellarmine also hosts volleyball and wrestling matches at Knights Hall. Recent improvements made to Knights Hall include a new center-hung scoreboard and new television monitors in the lobby and terrace level.
This story was originally published October 30, 2024 at 12:39 PM.
