NORMAL, Ill. – University of Southern Indiana Men's Basketball team showed a lot of promise for 2015-16, but fell in its exhibition game with Illinois State University, 88-81, Sunday in Normal, Illinois. USI starts the 2015-16 regular season November 13-14 when it travels to Las Vegas Nevada, to play in the D2 Vegas Showdown.
 
The D2 Vegas Showdown will pit the Screaming Eagles against a pair Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference team in the University of Findlay November 13 and Lake Superior State University November 14.
 
In the exhibition loss, USI fell behind early, 11-5, but battled back to take the lead, 16-14, with 12: 06 left in the opening half on a lay-up by senior forward George Edwards (Chicago, Illinois). The Eagles and the Redbirds would trade the lead seven times until Illinois State used an 11-4 run to close out the half and go into the locker room with a 44-38 intermission lead.
 
The Eagles' largest lead of the half was four points on three different occasions (28-24, 30-26, and 34-30).
 
The second half saw USI cut the first-half deficit to four points, 51-47, in the first three minutes, but Illinois State rallied and methodically extended its lead to 19 points twice in the final 10 minutes of the game. The Eagles, however, were not about to go quietly.
 
Trailing 80-66 with 4:16 to play, USI went on a 6-0 run to close to within eight, 80-72, on a lay-up by Edwards. Illinois State pushed the lead back to double-digits six times in the final two minutes only to see USI fight back each time before the Eagles heard the final buzzer on the 88-81 loss.
 
Individually, Edwards led four Eagles in double-figures with 21 points. He was a blistering nine-of-11 from the field and three-of-six from the charity stripe.
 
Junior guard Jeril Taylor (Louisville, Kentucy) followed Edwards in the scoring column with 17 points, while junior forward Terrence Tisdell (Cape Giradeau, Missouri) and junior guard Bobo Drummond (Peoria, Illinois) rounded out the double-digit scorers with 15 points and 14 points, respectively. Taylor also had a team-high nine rebounds.