NORTHFIELD, Minn. – The St. Olaf College men's basketball team cut a 19-point second-half deficit to eight with over two minutes to go but ran out of time in a 74-63 loss to UW-Stevens Point on Wednesday evening at Skoglund Center.
After UW-Stevens Point (2-0) built a 64-45 lead with seven minutes remaining, St. Olaf (0-2) went on a 15-4 run to get within 68-60 with 2:13 remaining but ultimately ran out of time to complete the comeback. Senior
Kobe Kirk and sophomores
Rex Lamb,
AJ Uhl, and
Liam Madigan combined to score 61 of the Oles' 63 points in the loss.
Kirk led all scorers with 26 points on 10-for-16 shooting from the field and 5-for-6 shooting at the free-throw line. Lamb – the reigning Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) Offensive Player of the Week – added 14 points and hit 3-of-7 three-pointers, while Uhl had 13 points on 6-for-10 shooting. Madigan contributed eight points seven rebounds, five assists, three blocked shots, and one steal.
St. Olaf shot 48.1 percent (26-for-54) from the field but was just 4-for-15 (26.7 percent) from beyond the arc and was outscored 15-7 at the free-throw line. UW-Stevens Point also enjoyed a 19-6 advantage in second-chance points. Cal Krohn (16), Logan Baumgartner (15), and Josiah Butler (14) were all in double figures for the visitors.
To start the game, St. Olaf hit four of its first six shots to get out to a 9-7 lead in the first four minutes. UW-Stevens Point went on an 8-0 run in the span of less than two minutes to take a 24-17 lead and took a 38-29 advantage – the largest of the half – into the locker room after a second-chance basket by Krohn off a missed free throw in the final second.
Uhl scored 11 of his 13 points in the opening half for St. Olaf, which shot 50.0 percent (13-for-26) before the break. Krohn and Butler had 10 points apiece for the Pointers, who had 11 second-chance points in the first half.
Kirk and Lamb combined to score 30 of St. Olaf's 34 second-half points, with Kirk scoring 19 on 7-for-11 from the field and Lamb adding 11. UW-Stevens Point maintained a lead of at least eight points for the entire second half and ballooned its lead to 64-45 with 6:49 to go with an extended 17-6 run.
Kirk led an attempted comeback for the Oles by pouring in eight points in a 15-4 run that made it an eight-point game with 2:13 to go. After getting a stop, St. Olaf missed the front end of a one-and-one with the chance to make it a two-possession game, and the Pointers made 6-of-8 free throws down the stretch to hold off the Oles.
St. Olaf will be back at home on Sunday, Nov. 16 for a 3 p.m. tip-off against Crown College.
