Box Score It wasn't the start to the Ohio conference trip that Kentucky Wesleyan College was looking for.
After winning their previous eight games in a row, KWC was upset by Great Midwest Athletic Conference opponent Cedarville, 62-60, on Thursday night in Cedarville after Devin Langford was whistled for a goaltend on J.C. Faubion's alley-oop layup attempt with .3 seconds left in the game.
The Panthers (13-4, 3-1 in G-MAC) appeared poised for a runaway victory after a first half in which they outscored the Yellow Jackets 27-17 and limited them to just 5-of-24 (20.8 percent) shooting from the field. However, Cedarville got back into contention by knocking down six of their seven 3-pointers in the second half while holding KWC scoreless from beyond the arc for the game.
"It should have been about 40-17 at halftime," said second-year KWC coach Happy Osborne, referring to the Panthers' 33.3 percent shooting clip during the first half. "We played with fire, and we got burnt."
Ken-Jah Bosley led the Panthers with 14 points, and Devin Langford finished with 11 points, 12 rebounds and four assists. Tre Boutilier chipped in 11 points off the bench.
"I thought there were some bright spots for us — I thought Tre was good, I thought Ken-Jah was good, Devin played a great game," Osborne said, noting the problems that came from playing Cedarville's press defense.
"We've got to lose frustration. We're getting a little frustrated. I think sometimes, and I don't know where this comes from, we think we're supposed to beat everybody by 25.
"We were too quick, too anxious, too much in a hurry. We practiced against the press all week, it just wasn't our day."
The Yellow Jackets (5-11, 2-1) got a game-high 15 points from Faubion, a reserve who also added eight rebounds. Leighton Smith and standout Marcus Reineke finished with 10 points each.
"I can't believe we held Matt Reineke to 10 points and lost," Osborne said.
The Panthers led for most of the second half until 6:18 remained when Smith's jumper gave Cedarville a 52-51 advantage, which it pushed to four points over the next three minutes. Boutilier and Bosley hit layups to tie the game, but Smith put the Yellow Jackets back up by two with a pair of free-throw makes with less than a minute to play.
Bosley tied the game once again with two free throws with 8.9 seconds left, which left Cedarville with the last shot. Without much developing, Faubion took a lob pass inside over the KWC zone and hoisted the ball up off the glass in the final seconds, after which Langford hit the ball for the game-sealing goaltending call.
"We played a 2-3 zone, we had them right where we wanted at the end," Osborne said. "I played zone because I was worried about playing the drive. I was scared to give up penetrate-and-pitch. They dropped it down there, the kid was open, Dev blocked it. We'll never know if it would have went in or not.
"For the game, they shot 38 (percent). That should be good enough. You can't give up 53 (percent in the second half). It's a lesson, it's a good league. You have to be careful when you go on the road. This is a team that's played quality people."
In addition to poor second-half perimeter defense, Osborne attributed the loss to his squad's inability to make shots against Cedarville's defense, as the Panthers finished at 39.7 percent shooting for the game.
"We shot them and shot them and shot them at practice," he said. "We were in a hurry all night. We got in a hurry and stayed in a hurry. I don't get that, because we played it all week, but we never, ever got comfortable."
