ST. CHARLES, Mo - The Lindenwood Men's Basketbal team (14-10, 8-5 OVC) fell by six points on their home floor tonight to SIUE by a final score of 78-72. Jadis Jones led the Lions with his seventh double-double of the season as the Sophomore scored a game-high 23 points on 9-11 shooting and pulled down 10 rebounds in the loss. Dontrez Williams picked up his first double-double of the season tonight as well by scoring 10 points and grabbing a team-high 11 rebounds in the contest with the Cougars. All five starters scored in double digits, but SIUE made a late push in the second half to down the Lions on their home floor. 

The early stages of the first half was back and forth as the two teams traded baskets throughout the first five minutes of the game with the score being 11-10 in favor of SIUE at the first media timeout of the opening half. Coming out of the media timeout, the Lions rattled off an 11-0 run to take a 21-11 lead with 13:03 to go. Anias Futrell scored six of the 11 points during the run, while Mekhi Cooper converted on a three pointer to put the Lions up almost halfway through the first 20 minutes of play. Cooper connected from deep a few minutes later after the Cougars had cut the Lindenwood lead to six to spark a quick 7-2 run. Jadis Jones scored back-to--back buckets to push the LU lead out to 11 at 30-19 with 9:22 to go and Lindenwood maintained that lead for the rest of the half until the final three minutes of the half. The Cougars ended the first half on a 6-2 run to put Lindenwood up by a score of 41-37 at the break. Jones led all scorers at the break with 15 points on 7-9 shooting and both Dontrez Williams and Anias Futrell each had eight points as the Lions were able to shoot 51.4% in the first half. 

SIUE came out of the locker room and immediately cut the deficit to one after Tyler King connected on a three pointer to make it a 41-40 game, but the Lions went on their third big run of the game to take a 56-44 lead with just over 13 minutes to go in the game. Futrell and Cooper combined for three three pointers during the run to give the Lions their largest lead of the game, but the Cougars clawed their way back into the contest and eventually tied the game at 63 with 5:12 to play in the second half. SIUE limited the Lions to just nine points over the final five minutes and used a late 5-0 run to take a 68-63 lead with 4:10 left. Lindenwood was able to cut the Cougar lead to one at 70-69 after Milos Nenadic connected on a jumper from just outside of the paint, but SIUE ended the game on an 8-3 run to take the 78-72 victory. SIUE held the Lions to 28.6% from the field in the second half while shooting 48.4% in the last 20 minutes of play to complete the season sweep over Lindenwood. 

The Lions will now hit the road tomorrow as they will travel to Little Rock, Arkansas for their next OVC game against the Little Rock Trojans on Thursday evening. Tip off from Little Rock is set for 7 PM CT.