ST. PAUL, Minn. – The Concordia-St. Paul men's basketball team (3-12, 1-8 NSIC) dropped a wild contest to Minnesota Duluth (11-4, 7-2 NSIC) by a score of 80-78 on Friday night at Gangelhoff Center.
 
It was back and forth throughout the entire night as both teams traded runs in an intense, physical matchup. After building an eight point advantage early in the second half, the Golden Bears saw the Bulldogs swing it in their favor with a 72-62 lead with 4:04 play, but CSP would not go away as they stormed back to within a point before seeing their comeback bid fall short.
 
Concordia dropped to 13-20 in the all-time series with the Bulldogs as they dropped their seventh game by five or less points on the season.
 
For the seventh time on the season, the Golden Bears hit double digits from beyond the arc as they connected on an efficient 10-21 (47.6%) for the game while they held UMD to 7-20 (35.0%) from deep. CSP added an 11-0 edge in fast break points as well as a 38-32 edge in points in the paint and a 15-11 edge in second chance points in the loss.
 
Antwan Kimmons filled the stat sheet with 24 points, nine assists and five boards while hitting 9-16 from the floor. It was the junior's ninth 20+ point performance and third in the past four games. Macrus Skeete added a double-double, his second of the season, with 11 points and 10 rebounds in the game.
 
Roy Grigsby caught fire from three-point range before the half as knocked down all four of his attempts in the first half before finishing with 14 points and three rebounds on the night. Emad Elniel gave Concordia four players in double figures with 10 points and four boards.
 
UMD's Joshua Brown scored 14 of his team-high 21 points in the second half, hitting all four attempts from beyond the arc down the stretch, to aid the Bulldogs. Austin Andrews and Joshua Strong added 13 points and four boards in the win.
 
It was the Bulldogs that delivered the first blow as they ran out to an 18-11 lead at the 11:39 mark before CSP responded with the next five in a row to trim it to two. The UMD lead was back to five at 29-24 with 4:46 left before the break before Grigsby sparked a huge 16-5 run to close out the half to give the Golden Bears a 40-34 edge heading to the locker room.
 
After an early UMD bucket to start the second half, Jacob Everson and Grigsby put in back-to-back baskets to give the Golden Bears their largest lead of the night at 44-36 with 18:32 to go. That lead quickly evaporated, however, as Minnesota Duluth scored eight straight and 11 of 13 to take a 47-46 lead of the own. That proved to be the first of three lead changes to go along with five ties over an eight minute span before the Bulldogs took control with an extended 19-7 burst to extend their advantage to 72-62 with four to play.
 
As has been the case all season, CSP responded with a timely 9-3 run to close the gap to just four at 75-71 with 1:32 left on the clock. Eventually, a Kimmons layup with 26 seconds to go pulled Concordia to within one possession before two Elniel free throws following a missed one-and-one free throw on the other end cut it all the way to one at 78-77 with seven second left. The Bulldogs missed two more free throws, but crucially grabbed an offensive board before putting down the next two to push it back to three. Kimmons then hit a free throw with 1.7 seconds left before a turnover on the ensuing inbounds play resulted in a Hail Mary heave from the opposite end of the court for the Golden Bears that landed in the arms of a UMD player to seal the 80-78 win for Minnesota Duluth.
 
Concordia will look to get back on track tomorrow night as they host St. Cloud State at 5:30 p.m.