MEMPHIS-No. 7 Bellarmine closed the first half on a 25-6 run to seize control in a 79-60 win over the Christian Brothers University Bucs Wednesday night at Canale Arena in the Bucs' final non-conference game of the season.

HOW IT HAPPENED:
• The Bucs (4-3) led for most of the game's first 12 minutes, taking a 6-2 lead on back-to-back layups by Brad Miller (Cincinnati, Ohio/Elder HS) and Mitch Mays (Cincinnati, Ohio/Lakota East HS) and restoring four-point leads at 12-8 and 15-11 on a pair of Jeff Larkin (Cincinnati, Ohio/La Salle HS) triples.
• After an Adam Dieball (Cincinnati, Ohio/Lakota East HS) jumper gave the Bucs a 20-17 lead with 8:42 remaining, the Knights (7-1) exploded for a 13-0 run to regain the lead for good. After a quick five-point CBU burst, the Knights closed the half on a 12-1 run capped by a pair of Adam Eberhard free throws to take a 42-26 lead into the intermission.
• The Bucs never came closer than 13 in the second half, but they never allowed the Bellarmine lead to extend beyond 20.

KEY STATS:
• Larkin paced the Bucs with 16 points and five assists.
• Dieball added 15.
• Alex Trentman (Alexandria, Ky./Bishop Brossart HS) grabbed a team-high seven rebounds to go with five points.
• Jordan Miller (Fulton, Ky./Fulton City HS) added eight points and five rebounds in 12 minutes.
• The Bucs shot 41.2 percent (21-of-51) for the game, including 34.6 percent (9-of-26) from three-point range. Bellarmine was 48.2 percent (27-of-56) overall, including 43.5 percent (10-of-23) from beyond the arc.
• Bellarmine out-rebounded the Bucs 34-29. CBU held a 7-6 edge in offensive boards, but the Bucs committed 18 turnovers to the Knights' 13.

HEAD COACH MIKE NIENABER'S THOUGHTS:
On the end of the first half:
"We had been playing pretty well, we had a 3 or 4 point lead and I thought overall we were playing pretty well to be 2 or 3 ahead of them. And then we just hit a bad stretch midway in the first half where they went up 10 on us. But then we fought back and got it to five. We had three or four horrible offensive possessions when we cut it to five. That started the ball rolling back the other way where the next thing you look up, you're down 10 and then we had that miserable sequence to end the half where it was an 11-point game and we give them a five-point play to end the half. So we go in and we're 16 down."

"Most of the half we felt like we were right there, now you look up and you're 16 points down going in. We pretty much played the rest of the game there. It was a 16-point game the rest of the way. They'd get it to 20, then we'd cut it to 14. We pretty much played the whole second half like that."

"The offensive execution was bad at times, we had moving screens. A lot of the turnovers were off moving screens and stuff like that. During that sequence at the end of the half, we had two moving screens and both of them came from guys not being where they're supposed to be in the offense. It's just not running the offense right. Early in the game we got some good looks, we got some threes, we got a couple backdoor layups. I felt pretty good about how we started out."

On the team's poor free throw shooting:
"When you're trying to catch up and you miss free throw after free throw, and they don't miss them. I told our guys there were too many times where we'd hit a big basket and then we'd foul and give them the points right back because they're making them. If you make some of those free throws, maybe at some point you get the thing to single digits. You can't come back not making free throws."

On Bellarmine's two big runs:
"When you play a good team, that happens a lot in basketball. When you look at games, whether you're watching Duke or Kentucky or teams like that, good teams do that. So many times after tough losses you're talking about that one run where it got away. So many times, that's what it boils down to. I don't care if it's NBA, high school or junior high."

On Saturday's game:
"The last thing I told our guys, obviously we had an amazing game at Union last week. But if any of you think it's going to be easy, just forget it. We got on a roll that night."

WHAT'S NEXT:
The Bucs return to action Saturday night at 7 p.m. as they host Union.