st. Paul, minn. - the concordia university men's basketball team sufferred a crushing blow tonight in their final regular season home game, falling 88-82 to msu moorhead on senior night and "pink zone." with the loss, concordia misses out on a chance to move into a fourth place tie in the league standings, instead either remaining in fifth in a tie or dropping a spot to sixth pending other league action. The golden bears are now 10-8 in league play, 13-12 overall while msum improves to 9-16 overall, 6-12 nsic. box score

tonight's game featured nine ties and five lead changes, all coming in the first half except one second half lead change when the dragons took control for good.

in the first half, neither team led by more than six points as the score was knotted at 34 going into the break. Concordia forwards craig heiman (sr., marshall, wis.) and brent barz (so., johnston, iowa) scored 12 apiece with heiman knocking down four three-pointers playing 19 of 20 minutes.

after the break, concordia took the lead early with senior mike cunningham (minneapolis, minn.) converting one of two at the line. The dragons answered on the other end to take the lead 36-35 with 19:14 to play and would never relinquish their edge.

leading 47-44 with 14:52 to play, the dragons scorched cu for a 19-2 run over the next five minutes to take a commanding 18 point lead, their largest of the evening. They would push the lead to 18 on three different occasions over the next two minutes of play.

concordia made their move around the five minute mark, trailing by 17, 75-58 when senior thomas bassett (denison, iowa) converted in the lane with 5:18 to play.

from there, concordia would outscore the dragons 24-13 the rest of the way, holding the dragons without a field goal the rest of the game, but they only needed to attempt three shots in the last five and a half minutes.

they were able to convert at a high percentage from the foul line, cashing in on 13 of their 14 freebies to seal the game.

but it wasn't that easy as the golden bears picked up steam as their full court defensive pressure kept msum off balance, forcing four turnovers in the last three minutes leading to some easy buckets.

despite an 11 point deficit with under two minutes to play, the golden bears were able to trim the lead to five, 82-77, with nine points in 1:04 elapsed game time.

trailing by seven, 86-79, heiman was fouled behind the arc for the second time in 12 seconds of basketball, hitting all six of those free throws to cut the deficit to four.

the dragons turned the ball over on the inbounds, being whistled for a five second call just as the inbounds pass would've sailed over the scorers table anyway, giving cu the ball under their own hoop.

an inbound pass from junior courtney tyler (eagan, minn.) to heiman at the top of the key allowed the second-ranked three-point shooter in school history an open look. The shot rattled out, and cunningham's put-back attempt was off the mark with seven seconds to play. After a dragon rebound and converted free throws, the improbable comeback attempt was over.

although heiman finished with 22 points, it was a tough night in his final game at gangelhoff, hitting just four of his 13 three-pointers on one of those evenings when he just couldn't get the bounce he needed. He finished the night 6-19 from the floor and 6-8 at the foul line in a gutsy 39 minutes. He moved into third on the nsic career scoring list with 1,188 points in 74 career league games and his four rebounds moves him to 15th in league history with 357.

heiman's three-point shooting echoed the feel of the entire squad as his teammates combined to shoot 1-9 from long range and all added up, cu hit just 22.7% from three-point range in a building they were hitting at a 45% rate entering play.

meanwhile, the dragons were hot from long range, hitting 12 of their 25 trey's led by reserves jake driscoll and andrew vanhavermaet who combined to drill 9-18 from downtown with 39 points. Driscoll led the team with 20 while vanhavermaet added 19. Dennis williamson bruised his way down low to an 18 point outing.

barz churned out a game-high 24 points in 20 minutes off the bench, hitting 8-10 from the floor and from the line with six rebounds. Bassett added 10 points and eight rebounds, earning the start on senior night before fouling out in 23 minutes. Cunningham scored 13 with five rebounds (four offensive) and four assists. He forced two steals and played 34 turnover-free minutes.

concordia's fourth senior, sammy ricks (st. Paul, minn.) clocked 22 minutes with three assists.

a freshman made his first collegiate start on senior night as isaiah thomas (fridley, minn.) contributed seven points on 3-6 shooting in 17 minutes. Off the bench, tyler added four poitns, five rebounds and five assists.

concordia's inability to turn their 15 offensive rebounds into second chance points hurt almost as much as the poor shooting night. They tallied only 19 second chance points while the dragons and their nine offensive rebounds amounted to 15 points, nullifying concordia's advantage in the post.

msu moorhead shot well on the road, hitting 53.7% from the field, 48.0% from three and 81.8% at the line.

the golden bears close out their regular season on the road, heading to st. Cloud state on wednesday before a saturday afternoon regular season finale at upper iowa. The next two games will see concordia fighting for a higher seed in the nsic/sanford health men's basketball tournament as the league standings are jumbled from fourth through ninth.