Box Score
The next three days may feel like weeks for the Kentucky Wesleyan College men's basketball team.
The No. 7-seeded Panthers fell to No. 2 seed Wisconsin-Parkside, 65-56, in the quarterfinals of the Great Lakes Valley Conference tournament at the Ford Center on Thursday, leaving their NCAA Division II Tournament hopes in jeopardy.
"We're hopeful, but at the same time we put it on ourselves," senior guard Kreig Oxley said. "If we would have come out and won today, we would have been in, no brainer. But, I mean, that's the way it happens."
Everything had fallen into place for KWC (20-8) heading into Thursday's game. Two teams ahead of the Panthers in the Midwest Region Rankings — Wayne State and Indianapolis — both lost in the quarterfinals of their respective conference tournaments.
A win over Wisconsin-Parkside could very well have bumped the Panthers into the top eight.
But the Rangers (20-7) were determined to make it tough for KWC.
Parkside answered nearly every run that KWC made, hitting six 3s and shooting 46.9 percent to do so.
The Panthers kept cutting the lead to four or five points, only to see Parkside answer back with four or five points of its own.
Parkside went up by 12 with 7:40 to play, then KWC answered with a 7-0 run to cut it to five, 53-48, with 4:19 left to play. Parkside then rattled off a 6-0 run on a Jeremy Saffold 3 and a 3-point play by Andy Mazurczak. KWC answered that with a 5-0 run to make it 59-54 with a 1:30 left to play.
A 3-point play by Kevin Senechalle right after that put Parkside back up by eight, 62-54, and essentially sealed the game.
"I thought our effort was good…we made a lot of runs at them," KWC coach Todd Lee said. "In the second half, they just continued to hit big shots and make plays. It's tough to win the game when you go 2-for-18 for the 3."
Saffold, the GLVC Player of the Year, and Conrad Krutwig both hit 3s in the second half to silence KWC runs. Saffold finished with a team-high 18 points along with six rebounds.
KWC rebounded after not scoring in the first 51⁄2 minutes to trail by just one at halftime. The second half started almost the same way, though, as Parkside opened with a 5-0 run and went up by nine at the 14:36 mark after a wide open 3 by Nick Neari.
The Panthers were able to win just about every loose ball and won the rebounding battle, 40-36. They had trouble scoring, shooting just 32.8 percent for the game.
"We were able to build that little cushion at the beginning of the second half, which was the difference because they kept coming and coming and luckily we had a little room to work," Parkside coach Luke Reigel said.
Donovan Johnson led KWC with a career-high 21 points.
KWC's NCAA Tournament hopes are now out of its hands, and the Panthers will have to wait until the Division II brackets are announced on Sunday for an answer.
"We might not sleep," senior Cornbread Walker said. "We might be waiting for that phone call or text for a long time."
