Mary Haridin-Baylor Athletics

Box Score

Belton, TX – The Texas Lutheran University men's basketball team overcame an early 10-0 deficit and a 10-point second-half deficit to send the game to overtime and the Bulldogs used clutch free-throw shooting to pull out a 96-95 overtime victory over Willamette University in the opening game of the Cru Holiday Classic Wednesday night in Belton. Texas Lutheran improves to 3-4 on the season with the victory. The loss drops the Bearcats to 3-7 on the year.

            Willamette opened the game with a 10-0 run as the Bearcats held TLU scoreless for the first 3:02 of the game. The Bulldogs fought back to take a 14-13 lead and a back-and-forth first half that featured four lead changes ended with Willamette leading 49-46. The Bearcats pushed the lead back to 10 points at 77-67 with 5:14 remaining, but TLU cut it to 85-84 on Michael Flores' three-pointer with 11 seconds left to play. Marcus Holmes hit one of two free-throws for Willamette with nine seconds left before Jarell English tied the game with an acrobatic jumper with four seconds to go. Willamette would have a chance to win in regulation, but Taylor Mounts missed a lay-up at the buzzer.

            The two teams would trade the lead early in the extra session before TLU took a 93-91 lead on Malcolm Dotson's jumper with 2:17 on the clock. Dotson would wrap three free-throws around Ryan Meehan's lay-up to make it 96-93 with 34 seconds to go. Meehan would hit a pair of free-throws to cut it to 96-95 with 15 seconds left following a TLU technical foul, but Meehan would miss a potential game-winning jumper as time expired.

            Flores led TLU with 28 points and he hit 6-8 from three-point range. Isaac Williams added 19 points and a game-high 13 boards for the Bulldogs. English had 16 points before fouling out and Brad Howard came off the bench to chip in with 15 points.

            Dart led Willamette with 21 points on 9-10 shooting from the field. Terrell Malley added 16 points off the bench. Meehan and Holmes scored 15 points apiece for the Bearcats and Mounts just missed a double-double with 11 rebounds and nine points.

            TLU shot 41 percent from the field and went 9-18 from three-point range. Willamette cooled off after the hot first half and finished at 42 percent from the field. The Bearcats also missed 14 free-throws and turned the ball over 28 times. TLU turned the ball over 20 times and lost the rebounding battle 51-44.