DURANT — The SWOSU men’s basketball team saw their 2020-21 season come to an end on Monday night as they dropped an 82-56 decision at Southeastern Oklahoma State in the opening round of the Great American Conference Tournament.
Damion Thornton and Kamden Gipson combined for 33 points and 13 rebounds for the Bulldogs, but the rest of the team contributed just 23 points while four of Southeastern’s starters had at least 15 points in the game. The Bulldogs hit just 31 percent, 22-71, of their field goals and 26.5 percent, 9-34, from beyond the arc while Southeastern shot better than 50 percent from the field and knocked down 16 three-pointers in the game.
“We have to give credit to those guys from Southeastern, they got hot tonight and made their open shots,” SWOSU coach Terry Evans said following the game. “I’m very disappointed in our performance tonight. For the most part, I think we got the shots we wanted but we didn’t do a good enough job of executing and hitting shots and that’s the story of the game.”
Oklahoma Baptist 101, SWOSU 98
For the second straight Saturday, the SWOSU Men’s Basketball team used a late rally to force overtime, but they were again done in late after Oklahoma Baptist scored the final five points to pull out a 101-98 victory against the Bulldogs at the Noble Complex.
OBU, which won the Great American Conference Western Division in the regular season, led by as many as 13 points in the first half and had an 88-81 lead with 32 seconds to play in regulation. Kamden Gipson and Tauriawn Knight hit three-pointers to make it a onepossession game and then Gipson found Knight on a backdoor cut and Knight laid the ball in to tie the game at 89-all in the closing seconds.
SWOSU took a two-point lead, 98-96, late in overtime when Knight knocked down a pair of free throws with 47 seconds remaining. OBU would then score the final 5 points, including a lay-in to take the lead with six seconds to play. The Bulldogs last chance effort ended in a turnover after Gipson’s drive was impeded by OBU and no foul was whistled.
The Bulldogs had five players in double figures, led by Knight with 23 points, Bralyn James with 18 and Gipson, Damion Thornton and Khobe Austin-Johnson with 15 apiece.