Western’s 70-65 exhibition win against Bellarmine on Saturday night was supposed to be a final tune-up before the Toppers entered their regular season schedule. It was supposed to be like any Western exhibition game, by the end, there would be a comfy lead on an overmatched opponent.

Except the game almost turned into what coach Ken McDonald said would have been an embarrassment.

“It just evolved into one of those games where we had a realistic chance of losing,” McDonald said. “And we somehow found a way in that last two or minute stretch to do things that we needed to do to win the game.”

Senior guard Orlando Mendez-Valdez led the Toppers off the bench with 18 points, including back-to-back three-pointers midway through the second half to get the lead back in Western’s favor after the Toppers trailed by as many as nine points.

“If Orlando didn’t play tonight, then we probably would have lost and probably would have lost pretty badly,” McDonald said. “He has got a lot of guts, and he made some big plays.? He didn’t play perfect but he did some big things for us.”

The game was tied at 57-57 with 3:39 remaining before the Toppers outscored the Knights 13-8 to finish the game.

The Toppers found themselves in a close game, a situation McDonald said the team hadn’t addressed enough in practice so far.

“We’ll obviously have to get a ton better between now and our next game to be able to compete,” McDonald said.

Game situations are a big part of that, he said.

Mendez-Valdez was quick to say that the Toppers had a lot to improve on.

“We just need to look in the mirror and decide what we want to do and where we want to go from here,” Mendez-Valdez said.?”I think all of the guys on the team want to do something, and we are eager to learn. We have some young guys, but our leadership, and especially me, we need to pick it up and be more vocal.”

Western only had seven assists and were out-rebounded 36 to 33 by Bellarmine.

“It’s very disappointing because we have a team that is supposed to be able to rebound,” junior forward Jeremy Evans said. “That is something that we will have to continue to work on and keep improving on.”

Senior forward Mike Walker saw his first game action since injuring his anterior cruciate ligament last season and said it felt really good to be back on the court. Mendez-Valdez also had left knee surgery on Sept. 26 and said he was at about 80 percent on Saturday night.

McDonald pointed to poor practices for Western’s performance on Saturday.

“I have to find a way with this coaching staff to motivate this team and to get everybody to buy into their roles and improve each day,” McDonald said.

Western’s close call came just seven days before the team open its season at Houston on Saturday.

“Houston will embarrass us … if we’re not ready to play,” McDonald said. “And if we played the game tonight, it’d be very embarrassing for this university and for this coaching staff and this team. And I don’t want our guys to be embarrassed. We’ve got good guys.”

Reach Andrew Robinson at sports@chherald.com.