ST. CHARLES, Mo. - Lindenwood Men's Basketball (16-14, 10-9 OVC) fell on their home floor Thursday night by a score of 71-67 to Eastern Illinois. Despite outscoring the Panthers in the second half, the Lions were unable to overcome a seven point halftime deficit. Anias Futrell finished the game with his 11th 20+ point performance of the season by scoring a team-high 27 points, but EIU made big shots and free throws down the stretch to hand Lindenwood their season-high fourth straight loss. 

Eastern Illinois started out the game on a 16-5 run through the first 7:30 of the first half behind 12 points from EIU's Kooper Jacobi. Lindenwood responded with a run of their own to cut the lead down to 16-12 after Anias Futrell scored seven straight points for the Lions in just over a minute of game time. The Panthers followed the 7-0 run by Futrell by opening up their largest lead of the half at 25-13 after Zion Fruster buried a three pointer with 7:38 to go in the opening half of play. The Lions chipped away at the Panther lead for the remainder of the half and got the deficit to seven at the break by a score of 36-29 after Dontrez Williams had a stretch where he scored five straight points for the Black and Gold and Anias Futrell ended the half with four straight points. Futrell led the Lions with 11 points on 4-8 shooting from the field, while Williams ended the half with nine points on two made three pointers. The Panthers were able to knock down 5-7 three point attempts in the first half and shot 77% from the free throw line to build a lead that they took into the locker room. 

To start the second half, the Lions immediately went on a 5-0 run within the first 1:30 of the half thanks to a Futrell layup and a Mekhi Cooper three pointer to make it a 36-34 game with just under 18 minutes to go. The Panthers would open up two different six point leads over the next four minutes as EIU's Jacobi continued to knock down shots from beyond the arc to extend EIU's lead to 47-41 with just over 13 minutes left in the half. Later in the half, Jacobi converted on a layup and Prince Johnson knocked down two free throws with 5:17 to go to put the Panthers up by 10, but the Lions responded in a big way.

Lindenwood's defense started putting pressure on the Panthers over the final five minutes by using a full court press, and it led to four turnovers that the Lions converted into four quick points to cut down EIU's lead to one with 25 seconds to go. Anias Futrell knocked down two free throws after being fouled with 12 seconds to go in the second half to cut the deficit to one at 68-67, but the Panthers made three out of their final four free throw attempts to put the game on ice and edged out a four point victory. 

Jadis Jones finished the game with his team leading eighth double-double of the season as the Sophomore pulled down a team-high 13 rebounds and scored 11 points, while Dontrez Williams ended with 16 points and five rebounds. Lindenwood shot 43.75% from the floor and 77.78% from the free throw line in the second half, but the Panthers countered by knocking down big shots late in the half and took advantage at the free throw line by making 18-24 over the last 20 minutes of action. 

Lindenwood will end their regular season on Saturday afternoon as they will head to Macomb, Ill to take on the Western Illinois Leathernecks. Tip off is set for 3:30 p.m. CT.