For the Knights, playing any games beyond the conference tournament may have seemed unlikely after an 0-5 start, though the losses were to good teams. Bellarmine Coach Scott Davenport said in a postgame news conference that the “leadership kicked in” from team captains at that point in the season.
Davenport said the possibility of his team playing in the National Invitational Tournament was “totally out of any control” because it is run by the N.C.A.A. He mentioned the College Basketball Invitational, which the Knights played in last year, as a postseason possibility.
“I don’t know how any coach at any level, any sport could be more proud than I am,” he said.
Bellarmine won the ASUN tournament with help from the 3-point shot, a key component of its success in Division II: The Knights shot 40.1 percent from 3-point range during the 2019-20 season, when they closed their Division II tenure by earning a N.C.A.A. tournament bid before the coronavirus pandemic forced its cancellation. And they made a program-best 312 3-point shots in 2016-17, when they made one of their four Division II Final Four appearances of the 2010s.
On Tuesday, the Knights shot 12 of 25 from long range. CJ Fleming shot 4 of 11 from 3-point range and led all scorers with 27 points. Dylan Penn added 22 points on 9-of-15 shooting from the field and won the tournament’s Most Valuable Player Award.
The impossibility of reaching the N.C.A.A. tournament didn’t dampen the excitement of Bellarmine fans, who rushed the court after the final buzzer.