Box Score Nic Wilkins hit just his second three of the season with 12.2 seconds remaining and the Misericordia University men's basketball team missed it's last-second attempt as the Cougars fell to the Colonels 67-66 in Freedom Conference action Wednesday night at the Marts Center.
 
“This certainly wasn't our best effort tonight,” said MU head coach Trevor Woodruff. “Credit to Wilkes for coming in and taking care of business. We didn't take care of the ball tonight, and we ended up with the result that we deserved.”
 
Steve Ware led the Cougars with 19 points and a game-high 11 rebounds while Matt Greene tacked on 17 points and a game-high eight assists. Justin Grotevant and Anthony Sergio each added 12 for MU.
 
The Colonels jumped out to a quick 7-2 lead, but Ware made back-to-back layups to cut Wilkes' lead to 9-8 and a Sergio three on the following possession answered a Chris Shovlin jumper to knot the score at 11-11.
 
Following a Devin Dunn layup, Greene would hit his first three of the night to give MU its first lead at 14-13 with 13:43 to play. After Ware answered a Pat Furst layup with a nifty reverse along the baseline, Sergio hit another three to give the Cougars a 19-15 lead with 10:56 to play, prompting a Wilkes timeout.
 
Wilkes rattled off five quick points out of the timeout, and over the next nine minutes the two teams continued to trade baskets and the lead. The Cougars would take their largest lead of the game at 42-35 on back-to-back threes by Sergio and Greene before a Wilkins layup with 46 seconds remaining closed the gap to 42-37 heading into halftime.
 
Greene, Sergio and Ware each had 12 first half points for the Cougars with Greene and Sergio combining for 8-10 shooting from three-point range.
 
“We weren't really doing anything special to get them open looks,” said Woodruff. We were just running our system, and they made the shots. That was really the only thing that kept us in the game.”
 
The Colonels quickly erased their halftime deficit, as Wilkins scored four straight points to open the half and cut MU's lead to 42-41. A Grotevant layup sparked a 7-0 run to make the score 49-41 but Wilkes would answer with a 13-2 run behind nine points from Tyler Breznitsky to retake the lead at 54-51 with 10:33 to play.
 
Consecutive buckets by Patrick Widdoss would cap an 8-0 Cougar run to put MU back on top 59-54, but Breznitsky would lead another 9-0 Wilkes run to give the Colonels a 63-59 lead with 4:20 remaining.
 
The Cougars fought back in, retaking the lead at 65-64 on a pair of Ware free throws with 1:59 remaining but MU made just one of three free throws down the stretch to set up Wilkins' game-winner.
 
Breznitsky scored 17 points in the second half to finish with a game and career-high 21 points while Wilkins added 16 points and 11 rebounds.
 
MU shot 48 percent for the game, including 53 percent from three, but made just 5-10 free throws and committed 22 turnovers in the loss.
 
With tonight's result, MU falls to 10-10 overall and 6-3 in Freedom action. The Cougars have little time to dwell on the loss, as they turn around to face Freedom-leading DeSales on Saturday at 3:00 PM.
 
 “Obviously, we'll have to play much better to beat the top team in the league,” said Woodruff. “We can't allow this game to leak into what we're doing next. Being healthy will help- hopefully both Busacca and Evans will be back. But for us, it's just a matter of being consistent. When we're good we're good, but there have been so many highs and lows. We just haven't yet found that consistency.”