EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. - Lindenwood Men's Basketball (10-6, 4-1 OVC) suffered their first Ohio Valley Conference loss of the season on Tuesday night, falling at SIUE 66-62. In his return to the lineup, Jadis Jones led the Lions offensively scoring a game-high 22 points off the bench and pulled down a career-high 14 rebounds to record his fifth double-double of the season. 

The first half started out slow for both squads with the score being tied 6-6 at the under 16 media timeout. Out of the timeout, SIUE went on an 11-4 run to take a 17-10 lead midway through the half. The Lions battled their way back several different times after the Cougar run and cut the deficit to three on two separate occasions, but the Lions were never able to grab a lead following the Cougar run. With less than 10 seconds to go in the opening half, Anias Futrell got a steal with the Lions down by four, and sent a pass up the floor to Clayton Jackson who was able to score in transition and drew a Cougar foul to make it a 35-33 game with one second to go. Jackson sank the free throw and the Lions were down 35-34 at the break. Dontrez Williams and Jadis Jones combined for 26 of Lindenwood's 34 points in the first half, with Williams leading the way as he scored 14 points and went a perfect 5-5 from the free throw line. Jones scored 12 points and grabbed seven rebounds in his first half of action in two weeks. 

In the second half the Lions trailed by five with 15:01 to go after SIUE's Kyle Thomas buried a jumper, but the Lions followed the Thomas jumper with an 8-0 run to take their first lead of the half with 13:33 to go. Jones highlighted the run with four points on back-to-back layups in the paint, while Robert Lewis made a nice hook shot from inside the paint and Anias Futrell hit a tough turn around jumper to spark the Lions offensively. That spark later led to a Mekhi Cooper three pointer with 10:05 remaining in the game and gave Lindenwood a 49-45 lead. However, the Cougars responded to the Cooper three pointer with a 7-1 run to regain the lead at 52-50 with 5:22 left in the contest. Cooper eventually put the Lions back in front once again at 53-52 on a mid range jumper with 4:01 to go, but SIUE used a late run to pull ahead and hold on for the 66-62 victory. Lindenwood finished the game shooting 19% from beyond the arc compared to SIUE's 40% as the Cougars made some clutch three pointers down the stretch to hand the Lions their first conference loss of the season.

The Lions will return to Hyland Arena on Saturday for their next game as they will host Little Rock at 3:30 p.m.