DAYTON, Ohio – The Southeastern Louisiana University men's basketball team got a season best start from
Christian Agnew, but the Lions couldn't keep up with a hot-shooting Dayton team as the Flyers opened up a 12-point lead in the second half and a comeback attempt came up short in an 80-74 loss Saturday afternoon at the UD Arena.
After swapping buckets for the first few minutes,
Alec Woodard gave the Lions their first lead of the game as his three-pointer with 14:45 left made it 7-6 Southeastern. A
Boogie Anderson jumper made it 9-6 before a four-point possession by Dayton gave the Flyers the lead for a good portion of the remainder of the first half. Trailing 31-26 with less than five minutes left, Agnew and
Matthew Strange went back-to-back on made three-pointers to give the Lions the lead at 32-31. After a Flyer three ball gave Dayton the lead back, Agnew went back-to-back with three pointers to give the Lions its largest lead of the half at 38-34 with less than 90 seconds before halftime. A Dayton three cut the SLU lead to one point at the end of the first half, 38-37.
Southeastern tried to keep the momentum going at the start of the second half as
Roscoe Eastmond came up with a steal and found Woodard for a transition three to give SLU a 41-37 lead out of the break. Dayton scored the next four points to tie the score, but buckets by
Roger McFarlane and Eastmond reestablished the four-point Lion advantage at 45-41 with less than 18 minutes left in the game. Dayton scored the next eight points to take a 49-45 lead. Anderson beat the Flyer defense down the floor following a Dayton missed shot for a transition bucket to tie the score at 51-51 with 11:15 left, but that's where things got away from the Lions. The Flyers went on a 12-0 run before Anderson ended the spurt with a bucket with less than 6:30 left in the game. The Lions continued to battle, cutting the deficit all the way down to five points, 77-72, on an Anderson fastbreak bucket, but would get no closer.
Agnew scored a season best 20 points in the contest, 18 of those coming in the first half as he was nearly perfect during the first 20 minutes, and had a pair of steals. Anderson scored 14 points and dished out five assists.
Donte Houston went four-of-five from the field and three-of-four from the stripe for 11 points to go with four rebounds.
After shooting 51.9% in the first half, including 43.8% in the first half, things slowed down just a bit in the second half for Southeastern in the second half as SLU finished the game hitting at 47.3% as a team and 34.6% from three. Meanwhile, Dayton shot 50% in the first half and went up from there, shooting 70.6% in the second half to finish at 58.1% for the game. Also helping the Flyers in the game was their ability to get to the free throw line as Dayton went 23-of-34 at the stripe while SLU got to the line just 18 times and hit 13 of them.
The Lions (4-5) look to use home cooking to end the first two-game skid of the season on Wednesday night as Belhaven comes to Hammond. Tip-off of Wednesday's game against the Blazers (2-3) is set for 7:00 P.M. at the University Center.
HARDWOOD CLUB/S CLUB
Fans interested in becoming active supporters of the basketball program are encouraged to join the Hardwood Club. Lion alums are encouraged to join the exclusive S Club, which is restricted to Southeastern athletic letterwinners. All membership fees and donations to Hardwood Club are available for the exclusive use of the Southeastern basketball program. Membership information is available by contacting the Lion Athletics Association at
laa@southeastern.edu or (985) 549-5091 or visiting
www.LionUp.com.
SOCIAL MEDIA
For more information on Southeastern Basketball, follow @LionUpMBB and @DavidKieferSLU on Twitter, like /SLUathletics on Facebook and subscribe to the SLUathletics YouTube channel.
TICKETS
For ticket information, please contact the Southeastern Athletics Ticket Office at (985) 549-5466 or visit
www.LionSports.net/tickets. Southeastern is implementing mobile ticketing as the primary source for securing tickets. All tickets will be available via e-mail in a PDF format for fans to download on their phone or print at home. Tickets can also be downloaded to Apple Wallet.
