Box Score
Kentucky Wesleyan yet again experienced a roller coaster of emotion in the game's final minutes on Saturday
The No. 3 Panthers, after trailing by as many as 12, had an opportunity for a miracle shot to win the game at Wisconsin-Parkside, but the play never materialized as planned.
Kreig Oxley's full-court pass with 3.8 seconds left was batted around near mid-court, and KWC (14-3, 6-3 Great Lakes Valley Conference) was unable to get a shot off. Wisconsin-Parkside escaped with a 60-59 win to hand KWC it's third straight loss.
"We had run that play in practice and had worked on that," coach Todd Lee said. "Obviously, we had time. There was actually 3.8 on the clock. We thought there was 3.3, and they put an extra half-second on the clock, which gave us a little extra time. … If we had one-on-one coverage with (Dazmond Starke), we wanted to throw it down there to him. If they were going to double (team) him, we wanted to get it to one of the guards at the half court."
The idea was for Starke to catch it and find a guard streaking toward the basket, Lee said.
"I'll have to watch the film, but it looked like Lucas Barker was open at half court," Lee said. "With that amount of time, that's a lot of time to get the ball. … We ended up throwing it the length of the court which, as it turned out, wasn't the right play, and they got the deflection.
"In hindsight, in these situations when it doesn't work out, there's a lot of things that go through your mind – what you could have done different."
KWC would probably have liked to have start the second half a little differently, as well. After trailing by three at halftime, the Panthers went cold to start the second half and missed their first nine shots.
That allowed Parkside (12-5, 7-2 GLVC) to go up 43-34.
"We didn't start the game well in the first half or the second half," Lee said. "We've got to do a better job of coming out in the first half and the second half. Both groups that started were lethargic to say the least."
KWC guards Kreig Oxley and Lucas Barker were forced to play with injury and illness. Oxley tore the toenail off his big toe and was limping the whole game, while Barker came off the bench due to a stomach illness. Oxley was held to four points, while Barker didn't score.
The Panthers briefly took a one-point lead with 2:31 left, but couldn't maintain. They were plagued down the stretch by missed free throws and missed shots.
"We had a stretch there with about three, three-and-a-half minutes to go where we had two or three empty possessions," Lee said. "Then we had another stretch where I think (Starke) missed a layup. We had a couple in (Starke's) hands, and he dropped them. We had some opportunities that, when you look back at the film, that's going to be frustrating."
