Box Score

Bolivar, Mo. - The Southwest Baptist University men's basketball team dropped their season opener on Friday evening to Southwestern Oklahoma State 65-55. With the loss, SBU falls to 0-1 (0-0 MIAA) on the young season.

SWOSU jumped right out of the gate to open up the contest against SBU, hitting a pair of three, as the Bearcats found themselves down 6-0 in the early going. After settling down, the Bearcats tied the game up at 8-8 off of a three from Afum Obukwelu with 15:48 to go in the half, and would take the lead (13-12) at the 12:42 mark off of another bucket from Obukwelu. SBU held strong over the next five minutes, holding a slight margin over SWOSU, but the Bulldogs fought back to take a slight lead of their own, as the Bearcats would eventually go into the half down 36-31.

In the second half, after a quick SWOSU bucket, the Bearcats used back-to-back layups from David Gabrvosek and Daymond Cowlah to cut the Bulldogs lead down to three at 38-35 with 18:34 to go. However, the Bulldogs responded, slowly building their lead to a game high 16 (52-36) over the next ten minutes. The Bearcats used a 7-0 skirt to cut the lead back to single digits (52-43) with 7:05 to go, but swapped buckets with the visiting Bulldogs for the remainder of the contest as SBU would eventually fall 65-55.

"I felt like our team played hard tonight," head coach Clark Sheehy commented. "Our offensive execution wasn't where it needed to be and the 22 turnovers is something we need to correct. Those are things we need to get back and improve upon."

Offensively, Daymond Cowlah was the lone Bearcat in double-figures, giving SBU a team high 12 points from the floor. Menas Stephens tied his career high in rebounds, with 16, to go along with 8 points, while Robert Shaw and Afam Obukwelu each had 7 points. As a team, SBU shot 33.3% from the field, 21.7% from beyond the arc, and 69.6% from the free throw line.

The Bearcats will quickly return to action on Saturday, November 15 when they host Minnesota Duluth in the middle contest of the SBU Classic. Tip is set to begin at 4:30 p.m. from the Meyer Sports Center in Bolivar.