By GREG MENGELT
The lead didn’t last long. The Bulldogs scored the game’s next 10 points and pulled away for a 92-50 victory.
Betz scored five of the Knights’ first 10 points and finished with 12 points, four rebounds and an assist. The former Providence star went 5-for-8 from the field and made two of his three 3-point attempts for the Knights, who fall to 0-4 with the loss.
Fellow Bellarmine senior Dylan Penn added 14 points and had six of the Knights’ eight assists.
National Player of the Year frontrunner Drew Timme led the Bulldogs with 25 points and 5 rebounds. He was 7-of-10 from the field, 1-of-2 from the 3-point line and 10-of-13 from the charity stripe in the win. Sophomore guard Julian Strawther added 19 and freshman Chet Holmgren — the projected No. 1 pick in next summer’s NBA Draft — finished with 18.
Gonzaga (4-0) shot 53.3 percent from the field and outscored Bellarmine 17-5 at the free throw line. The Knights were 3-of-25 from beyond the 3-point arc (12 percent).
“Well, it’s obvious they’re a great, great basketball team,” Bellarmine coach Scott Davenport said of last year’s national runner-up. “What an incredibly class operation. It’s as first class an operation as I’ve witnessed in my coaching career. So from that standpoint, I give them tons of credit.”
The schedule will eventually get easier for the Knights, but not yet. On Monday, Bellarmine faces No. 2 UCLA, meaning the Knights will have played three of the nation’s top 6 teams (Purdue, Gonzaga and UCLA) in the first month of the season.
The Knights and Bruins meet at 8 p.m. at the Empire Classic in Las Vegas’s at T-Mobile Arena. The game can be seen on ESPN Plus. It’s the first of seven straight Bellarmine games on the platform.
