LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Scott Davenport is behind the wheel of a golf cart, but he's not at Seneca Golf Course or Hurstbourne or someplace like that. He's ripping around Bellarmine's campus with a group of his players and boxes of donuts.
Every time they see a group of students gathered, he wheels over and stops.
"This thing doesn't have power steering," he tells players in the back as they speed toward a crowd.
They offer the donuts, and tell the students about Bellarmine's first game of the 2024-25 season, at 11 a.m. Tuesday against Centre College, in Knights Hall on campus, where the team will return this season after four years in Freedom Hall.
Bellarmine coach Scott Davenport and players hand out donuts to students on campus to promote Tuesday's 11 a.m. game against Centre.
"We're doing this for you," he tells students of the 11 a.m. game.
It is a personal touch. A direct outreach for Bellarmine players to their classmates. A robust student section will be a centerpiece of the program's return to campus.
As Bellarmine prepares for its first season of NCAA Division I Tournament eligibility, Davenport, who built the Knights into a Division II power and won an NCAA title at that level in 2011, has become convinced of a few things amid college basketball's changing landscape. One thing he knows — the smallest school in NCAA Division I is not going to beat the big boys by going big.
But maybe it's possible for Bellarmine to find a competitive advantage by embracing small. Not in stature, necessarily, but in marketing. Bellarmine is a part of the same NIL and transfer portal world as everyone else. One look at this season's roster shows the scars of players having left to seek greener financial pastures.
Players at Bellarmine get Name, Image and Likeness money, like everywhere else. But Davenport is also trying to give them something else – the traditional college basketball experience. The camaraderie of bus rides with a close-knit team. The experience of a committed group that hangs out in the renovated locker room together.
And game days in a small (but soon-to-be-upgraded arena) filled with students and longtime fans who are right on top of the court. (The arena will get a major facelift during a break in the home schedule in mid-December, with a new center court scoreboard and video boards around the court. A new electronic scorer's table, used in past years by the University of Louisville, will be installed.)
"I don't know how you all feel about it, but almost everywhere in all sports is going smaller, more intimate and better experience," Davenport said to a group of reporters recently during the program's media day. "And that's the thought. And it is exciting. I mean, these kids, the greatest thing that's happened to me is the former players, because they built this, they understand, and they are over the top. They are excited."
Bellarmine coach Scott Davenport watches practice in Knights Hall on Oct. 22, 2024.
Bellarmine made the decision to reclassify to NCAA Division I in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Knights qualified for the CBI postseason tournament in their first year of ASUN competition, then won the ASUN Tournament to qualify for the NCAA (or even NIT) Tournament in their second year, but were barred by NCAA reclassification rules from competing.
Each year after that has been successively more difficult, in part because of an antiquated reclassification process that all but builds in recruiting obstacles — plus the added challenge of the transfer portal change that came about in 2021. The team's top scorer, Dylan Penn, left after the ASUN Championship for a chance to play in the NCAA Tournament at Vermont. And last season, because of injury, was the most difficult of all.
"The most difficult year I've ever coached," Davenport said. "Before we played our first conference game against Lipscomb, I was running in Freedom Hall. And I went back through my entire career. And I was thinking, had I ever coached a game — my first job at Ahrens High School downtown Louisville, even when I was a JV coach — did I ever coach a game with six players? We had six scholarship players, two non-scholarship (to start the ASUN season). So then I asked, did I ever coach a game with eight? No, never in my life. And we played the first eight games in the conference with six incredibly courageous scholarship kids and two non-scholarship players, I've never been through anything like that in my life, and it was sure not the way we planned."
But that, too, Davenport is leaning into. Though he lost two key players — center Langdon Hatton to Indiana and forward Peter Suder to Miami of Ohio — he has a core of players back from last season, with a group of newcomers. And he is using that adversity to teach. Each practice, in fact, serves as a reminder of the difficulties of last season, when Bellarmine would play even with deeper teams for 30 minutes, only to falter in the final eight.
"We've broken down the last eight minutes of every game last year," Davenport said. "So when in practice, we put eight minutes on that clock, you don't think everybody knows why that eight minutes is up there? We know what happened the last eight minutes of games. Was it a short bench? Was it foul trouble? Yeah, all those things occur in a game without the depth. It's hard to coach, hard to play. But it's by design. We use it as a source of strength."
Davenport is hoping a return to campus injects some energy – and perhaps a bit of good karma. He has suggested that team chaplain Father Dale Cieslik maybe perform an exorcism for good health.
Curt Hopf, who missed all last season with a knee injury, is back. And despite the new faces, he said that Bellarmine's team concept and style of play endure.
"We're working with guys and really emphasizing that if you do your role, good things happen," Hopf said. "It only works if everyone plays as a team, but when it works, it's a great thing."
Expectations are not high for this Bellarmine team. The Knights are picked to finish 10th in the 12-team ASUN.
But Davenport isn't worried about expectations.
"Everybody asks, everywhere, how is the team going to be?" Davenport said. "And my answer is always this. I am over the top. My top priority, my top value, is that we have 16 players, four managers, and five coaches who want to be here. And in this day and age, that value is now more important than ever before. They are here and they are here for the right reasons. They want to be here, for the style of play, the type of coaching, the teammates, the locker room."
Something Davenport is selling appeals to some players. Four have committed for next season already. He has tried to build strong ties to local companies who can partner with players for training and jobs. The focus isn't so much pro basketball — though Bellarmine has sent players into the professional ranks — so much as it is professions. Davenport reminds players who are entering the work force in a few years that they could be in the workforce until 2070.
"That's real life," he said. "That's not fake. They're going to be in that world. So, if they learn passion, dedication, attention to detail, working with others, being at a place where you want to be, fighting through tough times, I feel very comfortable they're going to be the answer to the society's questions we have right now. They are the answer."
And maybe, they'll be the answer for Bellarmine basketball in the present, too.
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