By Missy Grimes
3 10 2025
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Bellarmine men’s basketball head coach Scott Davenport is retiring. The legendary coach announced his decision today after 20 seasons, 426 wins, six conference tournament championships and one national championship.
“Scott Davenport is Bellarmine basketball—plain and simple,” said athletic director Scott Wiegandt. “He came into Knights Hall in 2005 and turned this program into something that has captivated the city and, at times, even the country, for reaching previously unobtainable heights. Though his presence will be missed on the bench, his influence on the young men who have been through the program and the student-athletes currently on the team will carry on.”
Davenport, the 11th head coach in Bellarmine history, finishes his career with a sparkling 426-197 record. His 426 wins and .684 winning percentage are easily tops in Knights history. Headlining his list of accomplishments are an NCAA Division II national championship in 2011 and an Atlantic Sun Tournament championship in 2022.
“Beyond his remarkable accomplishments on the court, Coach Davenport has been a hugely visible and effective ambassador for Bellarmine over the past two decades,” said Dr. Susan M. Donovan, Bellarmine’s president. “He also emerged as an advocate for the best in intercollegiate athletics because of his focus on the value of education and his commitment to the well-being of student-athletes above all else.”
Before helping usher Bellarmine into Division I, Davenport earned 364 of his wins at the Division II level. While in Division II, Davenport was a four-time Great Lakes Valley Conference Coach of the Year (2011, 2012, 2017, 2018) and the National Coach of the Year according to the NABC and DII Bulletin in the national championship season of 2011. He passed Joe Reibel, Knights head coach from 1971 to 1994, for the most wins in program history with his 347th win on November 13, 2019 during his 15th season.
The Knights reclassified to Division I in 2020 and Davenport would guide them to the ASUN Tournament title in just their second season in the league. The Knights’ ineligibility to participate in the NCAA Tournament due to the NCAA’s mandatory waiting period, of course, became a national story. Davenport was a Coach of the Year finalist in each of his first two seasons at the Division I level, earning a nomination for the Jim Phelan National Coach of the Year honor in 2021 after coaching the Knights to a 14-8 record in their inaugural DI season and the Hugh Durham National Coach of the Year award in both 2021 and 2022.
Under his tutelage, five Knights earned All-American status at the Division II level, including Braydon Hobbs, who was named the Division II National Player of the Year in 2012 by the NABC and Basketball Times. Of the 43 Knights in program history to score 1,000 points in scarlet and silver, 14 did so under Davenport.
Prior to coming to Bellarmine, Davenport served nine years as an assistant coach at the University of Louisville under national championship-winning Hall of Fame coaches Denny Crum and Rick Pitino. He also served a year as an assistant coach on Mike Pollio’s staff at Virginia Commonwealth where he coached alongside future Kentucky coach Tubby Smith. Before heading to Louisville, Davenport spent 10 seasons as the head boys’ coach at Ballard High School, where he won a state championship in 1988 and coached two future NBA players in DeJuan Wheat and Allan Houston.
Davenport’s full statement can be found here.
COURTESY BELLARMINE ATHLETICS
