No. 12 Tigers Drop Season Finale in OT; Settle for No. 3 Seed in MSC Tourney

GEORGETOWN, Ky. - The last two weeks of the regular season have not gone the way the NAIA No. 12 Georgetown College men's basketball team would have liked. The Tigers have hit the skids at the wrong time of the year, and they were hoping to right the ship on Saturday to build some momentum into the Mid-South Conference Championship tournament.

Unfortunately for the Tigers, the Shawnee State University Bears had other ideas.

Georgetown (22-7, 15-7 MSC) battled back from an early deficit to force overtime, but Shawnee State (16-13, 10-12 MSC) forced five Georgetown missed shots in the extra session, and the Bears took the win 85-81.

The teams traded a pair of 3-pointers apiece in their first three possessions, and the game remained an even battle throughout the early going. There were six tie scores before either team took a lead of more than three points, though just past the midway point in the frame, Shawnee State put together an 11-3 run to take a 27-19 lead. Georgetown answered with eight straight points to knot the score at 27, but the Bears immediately answered with their own 8-0 run. Over the final three minutes of the first half, the Tigers closed the gap, as they scored 10 of the final 14 points, but at the break, SSU led 39-37.

SSU opened a nine point lead early in the second half, but a 10-0 Georgetown run gave the Tigers a 51-50 lead with 14:25 to play. The Tigers took the lead several times in the ensuing 11 minutes, but neither team was able to distance itself from the other until the Bears scored six straight points late in regulation to open a 71-66 lead. A layup from Kyran Jones pulled the Tigers within three, Derrin Boyd buried a 3-pointer moments later to cut the deficit to a deuce, and with 19 seconds to play, Boyd sank a trio of free throws to put Georgetown ahead 74-73. A foul in the final seconds, though, put Shawnee State on the line, and the Bears converted one of two foul shots to send the game to overtime.

Boyd connected on a 3-point jumper to open the scoring in overtime, but Shawnee State scored the next five points in a row to take a 79-77 lead. With 2:19 to play, Boyd scored again to level the score at 79, but SSU immediately connected from deep and took the lead 82-79. Jaquay Wales scored with 1:09 to play to pull Georgetown within one, but the Tigers missed their last two shots and committed a critical turnover in the final seconds, and SSU took the win 85-81.

Boyd led the Tigers with 21 points in the game, and Jones added a double-double with 16 points and 12 rebounds. Cam Brooks-Harris and Jayrese Williams each also scored 10 points, and Wales narrowly missed a double-double of his own with nine points and a game-high 11 assists.

Georgetown shot 29-for-74 (39.2%) for the game, and they were 14-for-35 (40%) from beyond the arc. The Tigers, however, attempted only 15 free throws in the game, making nine of them (60%); while the Bears were 15-for-27 from the foul line.

The Tigers slide into the third seed for the upcoming Mid-South Conference tournament on the strength of a season sweep of the Cumberland University Phoenix, who also finished the year 15-7 in the MSC. Georgetown will get a bye into the quarterfinal round of the Championship where they will await the winner of the 6-11 matchup. The full bracket and times will be announced by the MSC conference office later this weekend.