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Western Illinois University Athletics

WIU Athletics
70
Winner South Dakota SD 6-3,0-0 Summit League
68
Western Ill. WIU 3-6,0-0 OVC
Winner
South Dakota SD
6-3,0-0 Summit League
70
Final
68
Western Ill. WIU
3-6,0-0 OVC
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 F
South Dakota SD 30 40 70
Western Ill. WIU 34 34 68

Game Recap: Men's Basketball | | WIU ATHLETIC COMMUNICATIONS

Western Illinois Falls at the Buzzer vs. South Dakota

Coyote basket spoils big WIU performances

MACOMB – The Western Illinois men nearly grabbed a late win on Sunday afternoon, but a buzzer-beater by South Dakota gave they Coyotes a heart-stopping 70-68 win inside of Western Hall.

Ryan Myers, scored a season-high 25 points, including a three-pointer with three seconds that tied the game at 68-68. But USD's Bostyn Holt took a pass, got to the basket and hit the bucket at the buzzer to win.

"We run the exact same play, so when the alignment was set, we knew, we called 'Oral Roberts,' Oral Roberts runs the same play, we knew it was coming but we have to keep the ball from getting downhill and getting that deep and we didn't and that's one me," WIU coach Chad Boudreau said. "We're not there yet as a team, a group, we're not there yet and that's 100 percent on me. I need to temper expectations because I've talked a lot about what we're going to do and how we're going to do it and we're not there, we're not close in my mind."

The buzzer-beater took the starch out of some big individual performances by the Leathernecks as Drew Cisse's 20 rebounds were the highest by a player in the Ohio Valley Conference this season and the most by a Leatherneck since Dan Braun's 24 in 1969. Myers' seven made three-pointers were the most by a player in the OVC and the most by a WIU player since CJ Duff's eight makes in January of 2019.

"JJ (Kalakon) played really well, Drew played well, there's a lot of individual performances where guys played well, Ryan Myers kept us in the game in the first half, we couldn't make a layup, but we could make threes, which is a positive to make those, it's good to see Ryan make those shots and that big one to tie it," Boudreau said. "We were hoping to get it to overtime, it'd be our third one, we got excited in the huddle, if we could get to overtime, we felt we'd be fine, we couldn't get it there though."

Western Illinois led most the day, leading by as many as nine with 16:57 to go, but South Dakota was able to hang around, making one last push to get the win.

South Dakota led by five, 51-46 with 9:41 left, but a 7-0 spurt fueled by Myers and JJ Kalakon (12 points) gave WIU a 53-51 lead. From there, it was back and forth as neither team led by more than three over the final 7:58. The game featured 22 lead changes and nine ties

Quinlan Bennett added nine points for Western Illinois while James Dent Jr. and Shay Davis each added seven.

WIU went 24-69 from the field, 8-22 from three and 12-17 from the line. South Dakota outrebounded Western Illinois 46-42.

The Leathernecks are next in action on Wednesday, hosting Coe College.
 
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