First half scoring drought hurts Eagles

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Score: DU 71, USI 65

EVANSVILLE, Ind. – The 18^th-ranked University of Southern Indiana men's basketball team fell short in the Great Lakes Valley Conference Tournament championship game to 8^th-ranked Drury University, 71-65, Sunday afternoon at the Ford Center in Evansville, Indiana. USI, the third seed, fell to 22-7 overall, while Drury, the top seed, goes to 25-4.
 
The Screaming Eagles flew out fast as they built an early 6-2 lead. The Panthers battled back with a 7-3 run to produce a 10-9 margin. Both team traded leads over the next five minutes until USI lead 18-17 with 10:39 left in the half. Then, the Eagles' offense went flat.
 
Drury built its largest lead of the half, six points, 24-18, while USI went nearly seven minutes without a point. This scoring drought would prove costly for the Eagles.
 
Despite the problems on offense, USI continued to do the job on defense and went into the intermission down by only three-points, 29-26. USI senior center Keith Dewitt (High Point, North Carolina) led the Eagles in the first half with eight points, playing most of the opening 20 minutes with two fouls.
 
In the second half, the USI offense came back to life and rallied to tie the score, 37-37 with 15:43 to play. The teams would trade the lead six more times before USI produced its largest lead of the second half, 57-53, with 6:40 left. This is when Drury's senior guard Alex Hall took over, scoring 13 of the Panthers final 18 points to erase the USI lead and give Drury the 71-65 victory.
 
The USI second half surge was led by junior guard Lawrence Thomas (Springfield, Illinois), who scored 11 of his 14 points in the final stanza. Thomas was four-of-nine from the field, including three three-point field goals.
 
The Eagles bounced back from poor first half shooting to shooting 50 percent (14-28) in the second half and finish the game at 44.2 percent (23-52). They also outrebounded the Panthers 35-29. USI and Drury match-up also produced 15 lead changes and six ties in the game.
 
Individually, Thomas and DeWitt led USI in the scoring column with 14 points each. Junior forward Orlando Rutledge (Louisville, Kentucky) rounded out the double-digit scorers with 11 points. DeWitt, who also finished the game with his 11^th double-double of the year by grabbing a game-high 12 rebounds, and Rutledge were named to the GLVC All-Tournament team.
 
With the loss, USI must wait for an at-large bid to the NCAA Division II Tournament. The tournament pairs will be announced tonight at 9:30 p.m. on NCAA.com. Fans are welcome to join the team and watch the show in the Varsity Club Room of the Physical Activities Center.