PINEVILLE, La. – The Louisiana Christian University men's basketball team went toe-to-toe with one of a NAIA Tournament team from a season ago, but the Wildcats went cold inside the final 90 seconds, allowing the Texas A&M-Texarkana Eagles to pull away in the closing moment as Wildcats dropped an 84-75 decision Saturday evening at H.O. West Fieldhouse.
 
Neither team led by double-digits at any point during the contest. The largest lead either team had in the first half was five points, which both teams accomplished during the opening 20 minutes of the contest. The Eagles got there first, taking a 19-14 lead with 10:30 remaining in the first period before LCU responded with five straight to tie the game at 19-19 on a Kae'ron Baker jumper with 7:30 left before the break. Trailing 28-26, a pair of made free throws by Baker started a 7-0 Wildcat push that got LCU out to their five-point advantage when Jordan Adebutu sank a jumper with 2:10 left that made the score 33-28 Wildcats. LCU led 35-33 at the break.
 
With the Wildcats leading 44-43 little more than four minutes into the second half, Kae'ron Baker tried to pull LCU out of reach of TAMUT as his layup with less than 15:30 left in the game started the Wildcats on a 9-3 push that gave the Wildcats their largest lead of the game as a Ferontay Banks transition layup put LCU ahead 53-46 with 13 minutes left in the game. The two teams traded three-pointers on the next two possessions as Baker's three-ball reestablished the -seven-point advantage. However, a 7-0 Eagle run followed that as TAMUT got back into the game. From that point on, neither team led by more than four points until the game reached crunch time.
 
One of the biggest moments in the game came with about 1:30 remaining with the Wildcats down two points and the Eagles in possession of the ball. The Wildcat defense had the ball-handler trapped along the sideline and appeared to have jarred the ball loose for a potential turnover. However, a timeout call that ended the play was rescinded and the Eagles took advantage of the free inbounds play, without the loss of a timeout, turning that extra chance at the possession into a bucket that got the TAMUT lead back up to two possessions. A couple misses on LCU's possessions down the stretch combined with free throws by TAMUT allowed the Eagles to close out the contest.
 
Kae'ron Baker continued to lead the charge for the Wildcats, putting up a season-high 34 points on 12 made baskets, including three made threes. KJ Bilbo filled up the stat sheet with 14 points, five assists, and four rebounds. Both Malik Cooper and Jordan Adebutu flirted with double-doubles as Cooper finished the contest with 12 points and nine rebounds while Adebutu scored 11 points while also securing nine boards.
 
LCU hit 44.3% of their shots from the field in the contest, but struggled to hang with TAMUT's second half outburst that saw the Eagles hit 58.1% from the field in the last 20 minutes, which included hitting seven of their ten attempts from above the three point arc in the second half.
 
The Wildcats (7-7, 2-1 RRAC) look to rebound on Thursday on their first road trip of the RRAC schedule, heading up I-49 to Shreveport for a date with the defending RRAC Champions LSU Shreveport. Tip-off of Thursday's game against the Pilots (9-5, 2-0 RRAC) is set for 7:30 P.M., or about 20 minutes following the end of the women's game, at The Dock on the LSUS campus.