Bellarmine’s rise in NCAA D-I stalled: Doug Davenport’s plan to revive the Knights
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Bellarmine fell to 13-49 over two seasons amid NIL, transfer rule challenges.
- Doug Davenport inherits program with seven returnees and key scorers to develop.
- Roster strategy shifts aim to prioritize fit and fundamentals over individual talent.
In 2021, Bellarmine men’s basketball came within one game of winning the ASUN Conference regular season championship in the Knights’ first season transitioning from NCAA Division II to Division I.
The following July, someone who looks remarkably like me wrote a column asking if Bellarmine was poised to become “the new Belmont” of men’s college hoops?
That column held up pretty well through the ensuing season, when Scott Davenport, the venerable Knights coach, led Bellarmine to the 2022 ASUN Conference Tournament title.
Alas, subsequently Bellarmine’s drive to replicate the path Belmont took from small college basketball power to nationally relevant NCAA Division I program has stalled.
Not set up for a world of NIL and unrestricted player transfer rules, Bellarmine has gone a horrid 13-49 combined over the past two seasons.
After last year’s 5-26 slog, Scott Davenport hung up his whistle at the private Catholic university in Louisville.
In doing so, he ended one of the more estimable coaching careers in the modern history of basketball in Kentucky. Davenport led Ballard High School to the 1988 boys hoops state title and directed Bellarmine to the 2011 NCAA Division II national championship in addition to winning a Division I league tournament for the Knights in 2022.
Inheriting the task of reversing Bellarmine’s slide as the Knights’ new head man is Doug Davenport, Scott’s son and former assistant.
A 2010 Bellarmine graduate, Doug Davenport has a frank assessment of why the Knights’ early success in NCAA Division I has slowed.
“I think where we got into trouble was, we probably weren’t built to be turning the roster over in large quantities. Just not the way we had always done things,” he said. “And we got blindsided by a couple transfers like, returning starters, (going into the portal) on the last day it was open.
“To be very blunt, we didn’t have (NIL) money to go get anybody, so we probably took a couple square pegs in round holes. Probably just didn’t fit who we are as a program, basketball-wise.”
The good news for Davenport in his first season is that, even though Bellarmine lost its second- and third- leading scorers from last year to the portal, the Knights return seven players, including last season’s leading scorer, Jack Karasinski (15.4 points a game).
If Bellarmine is to bounce back in 2025-26, the Knights figure to need big years from a pair of former Central Kentucky high school standouts.
Former Lexington Catholic star Tyler Doyle averaged 6.4 points, 3.2 rebounds and shot 55.1% from the floor last season as a true freshman for the Knights. The 6-foot-5, 185 pounder made only 25.8% of his 3-point tries, however.
As a result, Davenport says the Bellarmine coaching staff has rebuilt Doyle’s shooting technique.
“We’re really breaking everything down, going back to technique and form,” Davenport said. “... Knock on wood, we have no idea what may happen, but my eyes tell me, visually, he is shooting the ball so much better than he was last year. If we are going to flip this thing, Tyler is a huge piece of it — and he knows that.”
As a Bellarmine redshirt freshman last season, former Collins High School star Kenyon Goodin averaged 7.1 points, 3.4 rebounds and hit 48.3% of his 3-point tries. The 6-3, 190-pound Goodin made his last nine trey tries of the season.
Davenport said the Knights men’s hoops program has been aware of Goodin since the Shelbyville product first attended a Bellarmine basketball camp at age 8.
“He’s proven he can be a good player in stretches,” Davenport said. “He’s gotta prove ‘You’re gonna be a good player for 31 games.’”
Doug Davenport says his father, who went 426-197 as Bellarmine coach from 2005 through 2025 and took the Knights to four NCAA Division II Final Fours, has been giving the BU program space since stepping down as head coach.
Transylvania University men’s hoops coach Brian Lane, who 25 years ago followed his father Don as the Pioneers head man, said he would advise Doug Davenport to use Scott Davenport as a resource.
“My father, he would come to practices when I invited him, he was always at the games, but he wouldn’t volunteer information unless I asked — and I quickly found out that it was very important that I asked,” Brian Lane said. “Because you have somebody that has walked in these shoes and understands the difficulties and the challenges of the particular job.”
Excitable sportswriters aside, Bellarmine may no longer seem on path to be “the next Belmont.” But Doug Davenport comes in with a plan to right the Knights.
“We probably value some things differently, you know, in the recruiting or roster building and trying to find guys,” he said. “We’re not trying to win 13 one-on-one games, right? We’re trying to find the right guys that can thrive in how we do stuff, both character-wise and (in) basketball skill set. And I really do think we’ve done that.”
