The Oxford men's basketball team suffered a disappointing loss Saturday in Athens, Tennessee as the Tennessee Wesleyan Bulldogs knocked down a free throw with 5 seconds remaining to go ahead for the final time in the game. The Eagles missed at the buzzer on the other end to secure the 69 to 68 win for Tennessee Wesleyan.
The Eagles were down by 10 points with just under 4 minutes left in the game when they made a frantic comeback and tied the game on a big time three point shot by Sean Wickham to tie the score at 68 all with 20 seconds to go. The Eagles fouled with 5 seconds to go and P. Morgan calmly made his first free throw to give the Bulldogs the final margin of victory.
Oxford started both halves out slowly but fought back in both halves. In the first half, the Eagles were down 21 to 11 with 12:15 minutes to go before evening the score at 28 all with 2 minutes to go. The Eagles ended up down 33 to 31 at intermission.
Zane Patel led the Eagles with 14 points making 4 of 7 from three point range. Seb Mosso and Sean Wickham both scored 13 points and Eric Lee produced 12 points.
The Eagles forced 20 turnovers but poor shooting and rebounding doomed the Eagles.
"This is one of those games that you would have liked to win late in the season," said Oxford head coach Roderick Stubbs. "To fight back like we did and to come up short is tough but now it is time to get ready for a tough conference game at home versus West Georgia Technical College."
The Eagles play West Georgia Technical College on Wednesday in the 2nd game of a double header with the men's and women's team at Williams Gym. The women's game is set for 5:30pm and the men's game is set for 7:30pm.