EVANSVILLE, Ind. -- Minnesota State Moorhead basketball coach Chad Walthall could only laugh in a hallway of the Ford Center late Wednesday night.
He'd just watched his very talented offensive team get steamrolled by a much, much better offensive team, 92-75 in the quarterfinals of the NCAA Division II tournament.
Dragons, meet the Bellarmine Buzzsaw.
"They're good," chuckled a resigned Walthall. "I mean ... they're just good. Real good."
The Knights finished the contest shooting 61 percent from the floor (37 of 61), which is outstanding for any basketball team. Yet, it seemed like Bellarmine was positively frigid over the final 10 minutes.
That's because the Knights were shooting over 70 percent for much of the game. Whether it was layups from Jake Thelen (12 of 16), 3-pointers from Rusty Troutman (3 of 3) or driving bankshots from the ultra-talented Chris Whitehead (8 of 13), Bellarmine simply had too many weapons for the Dragons.
It was a shooting display that looked like a YMCA pickup game. Rebound, drive up the floor, shoot, swish. Repeat. Over and over. Bellarmine's offensive game was something to behold.
"We ran into a little bit of a buzzsaw tonight," Walthall said. "Bellarmine was an outstanding team.
"We had some defensive breakdowns, there's no doubt. Against a team with that much firepower, you can't afford any breakdowns."
Thelen was the Bellarmine player who received the most attention prior to the game. He was shooting 67 percent for the season coming into the contest, and shot 74 percent last year. His 26 points topped the boxscore against the Dragons.
But the most impressive player on the court was Whitehead, a 5-foot-9 scat back of a point guard who dominated both ends of the court against MSUM. Whitehead was essentially unguardable with his quickness off the dribble and when he wasn't scoring an easy layup, he was zipping a pass to Thelen or Josh Derksen for an open jump shot.
Defensively, he helped hold MSUM star Jordan Riewer to a hard-earned 11 points.
"He makes their team go," Riewer said. "Thelen is the catalyst, but I'm not sure they go as much as they do without Whitehead."
"Chris Whitehead opens up a lot of things for us," Thelen said. "If he blows by somebody, he's either going to get a layup or kick it out to somebody on the wing for a wide-open shot."
Despite nearly getting run over at the end of the first half, the Dragons found themselves down just six points, 49-43, at halftime. As MSUM's Tyler Vaughan said after the game, "If you give up 49 points in the first half, things aren't going to go well." Yet, the Dragons were still in the game.
A bucket by Issac Sevlie pulled the Dragons within 63-58 with 17:46 remaining. And then roof caved in. Bellarmine scored the next 12 points -- upping its shooting percentage for the game to 71.4 percent -- to take a 65-48 lead with 15:44 left.
Yes, you read that right. It took 2 minutes and 2 seconds for the Knights to bury the Dragons. With a 17-point lead, the rest of the game was academic. MSUM was not going to stop Bellarmine.
"We knew it was a game when people were going to score. We knew there was going to be some points scored. But they got it rolling at the end of the first half there and we kind of got left behind," Walthall said.
The Dragons finished a historic season 35-4. It was the most victories in a season for an MSUM and the school's first trip to the Elite Eight since moving to Division II in the mid-1990s.
MSUM will lose only three players -- Riewer, Urbane Bingham, Prescott Williams. Riewer is a huge loss, the Northern Sun Intercollegiate co-player of the year. But the cupboard isn't entirely empty. Although the Dragons' top conference rival, Augustana, returns its entire excellent team.
"This group is as special as any group I've ever been around," Walthall said. "They are talented, but they are not freaky talented. But they're tough and they know how to win and they're special."
"Five years ago when I came to Moorhead there were about 100 people in the stands," Riewer said. "To see the community come out and support us the way they have is unbelievable."
Unbelievable is the perfect word to describe how Bellarmine shot the basketball Wednesday. Unbelievable and unstoppable.