Men's Basketball

February 28, 2009

Tigers Upset by Southwestern in Semifinals

Conway, Arkansas - Trinity's men's basketball team had its run at the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference Championship interrupted by a 68-63 loss to Southwestern University in the semifinals of the SCAC Tournament on Saturday evening.

Trinity (23-4) led 34-29 at the half, but Southwestern came out of the break with a 13-3 run to take the lead and change the face of the game.

Southwestern shot just over 60% from the field in the second half, powering to its first-ever appearance in the SCAC Championship game. 

True to form in a matchup between these two teams, the lead went back and forth in the early going.  The Tigers took control of the game with a 14-2 run in the latter part of the first half to go up 30-21 with under four minutes to go before halftime.  A three-pointer with seven seconds left finished off a spurt by Southwestern that cut it to five by the buzzer, though.

After Southwestern's charge to open the second half, the teams settled went back and forth the rest of the half, and the ninth tie of the game came in the final 90 seconds.  B.J. Moon hit a game-tying jump shot with 1:29 to play, which was mainly significant considering it was the third time in the game's final three minutes that he scored game-tying points. 

His three-pointer with 2:57 left tied the game 57-57, then a pair of free throws at 2:04 made it 59-59.  His next shot made it 61-61, but Southwestern made sure that the Tigers never took the lead.  Southwestern hit 5-6 from the foul line in the final 40 seconds, sealing its first win over Trinity since the 2004-05 season.

Moon led the Tigers with 20 points on 7-15 shooting, hitting 4-10 from three-point range.  He also finished with a game-high five assists.

Patrick Robinson scored 15 points for Trinity, while Charles Houston had 10 points and a game-best eight rebounds.  Houston also had four assists and three steals.  Luke Caldarera finished with six points and seven boards.

Anthony Cox led Southwestern with 18 points on 7-10 shooting, and also dished out five assists.  Andrew McDonald scored 15 points and added five rebounds, while Travis Barber had 11 points and a team-best seven boards.

Trinity will await a potential at-large bid for the NCAA Playoffs, which will begin next week.  The Tigers last appearance in the postseason was during the 2005-06 season.