LEBANON, Ill. – The McKendree University men's basketball concluded its stretch of playing three games in six days to open Great Lakes Valley Conference play here Saturday afternoon by shooting under 40 percent from the field and missing 11 of its 33 free throw attempts en route to suffering its second straight loss of the season as the Bearcats fell 78-62 to Lewis University at the Harry M. Statham Sports Center.
With the setback, McKendree, who opened the season with four straight wins, falls to 4-2 on the season and 1-2 in the GLVC, while Lewis improves to 2-5 overall and 2-0 in the league.
Saturday's game was the first home game in GLVC play for the Bearcats and just the second home game overall on the season for McKendree as they have played four of their first six games away from home. In addition, the game was the third this week for the Bearcats as they opened league play with a 51-47 win on Monday at Illinois-Springfield, before suffering its first loss of the season on Thursday at Maryville, 60-55.
In Saturday's game, junior guard
Bryson Bultman (Nashville, Ill./Nashville) continued his strong offensive play in the early season as he tallied 24 points and added seven rebounds and three assists. Bultman has now scored in double figures in five games this season, including tallying 20 or more points in three of those games. Bultman was 6-for-9 shooting from the field, but went just 11-for-17 (64.7 percent) from the free throw line.
Along with Bultman's 24 points, the other Bearcat to score in double figures was junior guard Aleksander Davitkov (Belgrade, Serbia/Partizan) as he scored 11 points. Senior forward
Luke Hensler (Okawville, Ill./SWIC) and redshirt senior guard
Oliver Stephen (Edwardsville, Ill./SWIC) each had seven points and combined for eight rebounds.
McKendree, who was playing its first game since picking up a 75-53 win over Harris-Stowe on Nov. 18, scored the first four points of the game and led 16-12 following a trey by Davitkov with 10:19 left in the first half, before Lewis used an 11-3 run capped by a 3-pointer from Bruno Williams to push in front 23-19 with 3:53 remaining in the opening half.
Following the trey, Williams was whistled for a technical foul and Stephen would make the two technical free throws and then hit a trey just 21 seconds later to help McKendree retake the lead at 24-23 with 3:32 remaining in the half.
The Flyers, tough, would respond by closing the first half on a 9-2 run to take a 32-26 lead at the half. Anthony Sayles, Jr. scored five of Lewis' nine points during the run.
Lewis would open the second half on an 8-1 run to push its lead to 40-27 following a basket by Williams with 16:26 left in the game. Williams would score 18 points, including tallying 14 of them after halftime.
McKendree would mount another rally as they used a 20-9 run over the next 11-plus minutes to pull within 49-47 following a turn-around jump shot by Bultman, who scored 10 of McK's 20 points during the run.
On the ensuing possession by Lewis, Austin Boucher would drill a trey and would add another trey about 22 seconds later to cap a 6-2 run by the Flyers to push their lead to 55-49 with 6:24 remaining.
The Bearcats would make one more push as they scored five of the next seven points to drop Lewis' lead to 57-54 with 4:16 left, but the Flyers would respond with a 16-5 run capped by a dunk from Connor Niego to push out to a 73-59 lead with a minute left in the game.
Following Niego's dunk, Davitkov would drill a trey with 48 seconds left to cut Lewis' lead to 73-62, but the Flyers would hit three-of-four free throws and cap the scoring with a dunk by Marquise Jackson with 13 seconds remaining to set the final margin.
Niego paced the way for Lewis with a double-double of 20 points and 11 rebounds, while the third double-digit scorer was Atakan Sahinkaya, who scored 12 points and added nine rebounds before fouling out late in the game.
While McKendree shot 38.6 percent (17-for-44) from the field and 29 percent (6-for-21) from the 3-point line, Lewis finished the game shooting 44.4 percent (24-for-54) from the field and 67 percent (10-for-15) from the 3-point line.
The game featured a total of 48 fouls and a combined 61 free throws as McKendree was 22-for-33 (66.7 percent) at the line, while Lewis was 20-for-28 (71.4 percent) from the line, including a 16-for-22 effort at the line in the second half.
Lewis also held a 33-32 edge on the boards and also won the turnover battle as they had just five turnovers in the 40 minute game. McKendree recorded 12 turnovers and those led to 19 points for the Flyers.
McKendree will now take 10 days off for the completion of the first semester classes and finals before returning to action on Tuesday, Dec. 14 with a 3 p.m. non-conference game at home against Union (Tenn.) University. That game will mark the final home game of the 2021 calendar year for the Bearcats.
