KIRKSVILLE, Mo. - Trailing No. 9 Bellarmine by as many as 19 points in the first half, the Truman men's basketball team outscored the Knights 51-29 in the second period, including 20-6 in the final six minutes, en route to its first win over a ranked opponent since Feb. 6, 2014 (No. 15 Southern Indiana). The Bulldogs' 77-72 victory is also the first against the Knights in the Chris Foster era and first over a top-10 team since Jan. 16, 2013 (No. 10 Washburn).

Truman rebounded nicely from the Southern Indiana defeat on Thursday to improve to 13-4 overall and 5-2 in the GLVC. On the other side, Bellarmine's three-game winning streak was snapped, so they sit at 13-3 on the year and 5-1 in league play. Coming into this week, the Knights were giving up just 63.8 points per game, which was not only good for first in the GLVC, but 10th in all of Division II. Friday marked only the second time in 16 contests that Bellarmine has surrendered 77 or more points. Momentarily, the Bulldogs are back to second place in the West as the rest of the conference will compete on Saturday like normal.

After the first 20 minutes of play, Dwight Sistrunk, Jr. had as many points as personal fouls (two), but the redshirt senior decided to put the team on his back in the second half. Sistrunk Jr. went on to score 16 points in the next 20 minutes on 8-of-9 shooting from the floor with two assists and not a single turnover. The good guys are now 6-2 this year when Dwight goes for 10 or more points.

After him, Billy Daniel had another big game off the bench, this time with 16 points and five rebounds while shooting 7-for-10 from the field. In his last four games, Daniel is averaging 10.5 points per contest after putting up just 5.5 per game before that stretch. Jake Velky was the final scorer in double-figures with 12 points, five boards and one steal. Despite being held to just seven points (982 for career), Cory Myers dished out a game-high eight dimes, his most of the season. The Ankeny, Iowa native is now fourth in the record books for career assists with 402.

In the team head-to-head, Truman dominated Bellarmine in points in the paint to the tune of 42-26 and in fast-break points, 13-4. The Bulldogs shot 54.5 percent (30-of-55) to 48.1 percent (25-for-52) by the Knights, but the Purple and White made a blistering 62.5 percent (20-of-32) of their looks in the second half. That sentence right there pretty much puts in perspective just how lopsided the second half really was. In the first period, Truman was outrebounded by four and had three more turnovers than Bellarmine. Add in the halftime adjustments, though, and the Bulldogs had seven more boards and three less turnovers in the second half.

Up until the 8:19 mark of the first half, the two teams had tied for a third time at 19-19 and had already exchanged four leads. However, there wasn't much to cheer about for the final eight minutes and change as Bellarmine outscored Truman 24-7 and shot 7-of-9 with two turnovers and three steals to the Bulldogs 3-for-7, five turnover effort. Heading into the locker room, Truman was down by 17, 43-26. With that being said, Foster and his assistants must have said all the right things, because a different team walked out of the tunnel to resume play.

The visitors biggest second-half lead was 18, 48-30, with 17:30 to go before the Bulldogs slowly began to chew away at the deficit. After that margin of 18, Truman outscored Bellarmine 27-14 over the next nine minutes and 54 seconds to pull within five, 62-57, with 7:36 up on the scoreboard. The Knights rattled off four straight to increase their lead back to nine, 66-57, but the Bulldogs unleashed some fury of their own with the aforementioned 20-6 spurt to end the game. The shot that gave Truman its first lead since the 9:10 mark of the first half was a Kyle Kanaskie triple from deep in the left corner on Myers' seventh assist.

Following Saturday's exhibition at No. 8 Creighton (12 p.m. tip), the Bulldogs will travel to St. Louis to take on Maryville on Jan. 19 (7:30 p.m.) and UMSL on Jan. 21 (3 p.m.).