A season that saw a six-week stay at the Top 10 and the program's first regular season Mid-South Conference championship is over. Campbellsville University's eighth appearance in the Buffalo Funds NAIA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament was brief, as last year's No. 9 Fresno Pacific University knocked off the ninth-seeded Tigers, 74-61, in the first round Wednesday.

"It's disappointing because we had three really quality seniors in Nestor Colmenares, Jordan Benock and T.J. Bishop, and I'm disappointed for them that it had to end this way, because they had some great exceptions," CU head coach Keith Adkins said.



The Tigers struggled to stop the FPU Sunbirds in transition early and could not find its offense, as they trailed by as many as nine, 19-10, in the first half.

"We went up against a very good Fresno Pacific team and just weren't up to the challenge," Adkins said. "We were doing things out there that I've never seen our guys do."

CU went the first 12 minutes of the game without a made 3-point shot, until Bishop hit his only 3 with 7:53 left in the opening period. From there, the lid came off the basket from long range, but only for a short period of time, as the Tigers were held to 5-of-28 shooting from 3-point range.

Shawn Savage gave Campbellsville its first lead of the game with 6:15 left before the half, 20-18, on a 3-point shot. California native JaVaughn Espritt helped work the Tigers' lead to eight, 28-20, with 3:57 left in the half, but Fresno worked the lead down to a basket at the half. An Espritt block with one second left preserved the 32-30 halftime lead.

Espritt, who finished with 12 points and 10 rebounds, led CU at halftime with seven points and seven rebounds. However that changed in the second half when a couple of traveling calls seemed to hurt his penetration to the basket.

"The walking calls were big. There was a lot of uncertainty in his moves and a lot of uncertainty when he caught the ball in the zone after that," Adkins said.

The Tiger offense wasn't the only thing that began to falter in the second half, as CU began to struggle defensively. With 14 minutes left in the game, Fresno flipped a 41-40 Campbellsville lead with a 21-3 run to go up 18, 62-44, with 5:16 to play.

Alex Davenport exploded for 13 points in the second period to lead all scorers with 18 in the game - proving to be the difference maker.

"The bottom line was we could not guard him. None of our wings could keep him in front and none of our guys could guard him off the glass. In early February, we started our run, and created our run, by playing good perimeter defense, but somewhere along the way in late February, we lost our edge," Adkins said.

With that edge out, CU needed a strong post play, but returning All-American Colmenares was held to seven points, all early in the game.

"Defensively, we took Nestor out. That's what we wanted to do. We frustrated them and made them try to make jump shots and they' couldn't," Fresno head coach Jim Saia said.

That frustration led to foul trouble. Caleb Harris picked up three straight fouls while guarding Fresno leading scorer James Lewis, who scored 12 points in the second half. Colmenares, who was held scoreless in the second period, fouled out of the game with 3:43 remaining.

"The biggest thing with Nestor today was foul trouble. We've probably told him all we could that we need him to go into halftime with one or zero fouls. He's a very emotional player and sometimes those emotions can come out in a negative way, which leads to fouls," Adkins said. "He's a true competitor, the best competitor and biggest winner I've ever coached."

CU cut the lead down to nine after Colmenares fouled out, but was unable to overcome the Sunbirds' large margin.

Jordan Benock also fouled out late in the game, as he and Colmenares ended their career on the bench.

Campbellsville concludes the season with one of the Top 10 records in program history at 26-8.

"There's some positives to bring out of this season of course, but I'll stop just short of saying this was a great season. Yes we won a regular season championship, yes we had the conference Player of the Year, but the bottom line is when it ends like this I don't think you can translate that into a great season. The way it ends is sometimes what determines good or bad," Adkins said.