'Old man game' has served Dylan Penn well at Bellarmine

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Dylan Penn is pretty confident that he'll be able to get buckets against the young guys when he's a middle aged man getting in a hoop run. He has the game for it right now.

"I joke with my friends back home I play like an old man already," Penn said.

The athletic, 6-foot-3-inch guard from Evansville has used his ambidextrous, old-school, post-up game to baffle opponents for four years at Bellarmine. His production has increased each year. A first-team all-conference selection last season as a junior, Penn is one of the player of the year candidates in the ASUN this season.

He leads Bellarmine in scoring (16.9 ppg), assists (5.1 apg) and blocks and is second in steals and third in rebounds. And while his outside shot has improved, he has still made only 11 three-pointers this season.

"If you guard Dylan with somebody small and quick, he has the ability to go inside," Bellarmine head coach Scott Davenport said. "If you guard him with somebody with great length and great size, he has the ability to go by them. That's what makes for a total complete basketball player. That's Dylan Penn."

Penn never envisioned playing and thriving against Division I competition when he started at Bellarmine in the fall of 2018.

"My only thought was to get another Division II national championship banner, " Penn said. "It's been a blessing and it's just been awesome to go through it, especially with the guys we have in that locker room. So it's something that I'm really appreciative that I've been a part of."

Penn said he started doing most things left-handed when he was young but was pushed into doing some things right-handed, like writing in school. He eventually became just about equally proficient with either hand on the court, which is a big part of what makes him so tough to guard.

"It's a huge advantage, because everybody that plays basketball knows that trying to take away someone's dominant hand is one of the first things you're taught when you play defense," Penn said. "When a guy can go both ways, it makes it very, very difficult. ... It's something that makes my game very unique."

Davenport said that's not all that makes Penn unique.

"Caring is a very special talent that is impossible to measure through analytics," Davenport said. "Dylan Penn is a superstar. And we need more people that care like Dylan Penn cares."

"I get to start in Division I basketball," Penn said. "I get to play against some of the top teams in country, so even when I'm not feeling my best, I can really step back and put that into perspective. I'm going to be able to graduate with a great degree from a great university and I get to play basketball, which has been a dream of mine since I picked up a basketball."

Penn is getting a degree in history in the spring and then another in political science in the summer. He said he and his family will decide after the season whether to play his bonus season at Bellarmine next year or pursue professional basketball.

The Knights are 16-11 overall and 10-3 in the conference. They host Jacksonville State at 7 p.m. Sunday at Freedom Hall with division supremacy on the line.