ST. PAUL, Minn. - Concordia-St. Paul junior guard Antwan Kimmons poured in a game-high 38 points on Thursday night, nearly helping the Golden Bears (8-19, 6-15 NSIC) overcome a 29-point deficit before falling short 94-84 to Upper Iowa (15-12, 12-9 NSIC) at Gangelhoff Center.

Kimmons set the Concordia single-season scoring record, and then some, with his career-high 38 points for a season total of 569. The 38 points is the most in a game since February 28, 2009 when Matt Cadwell poured in 46 at the Gangelhoff Center against Upper Iowa, just shy of 14 years ago. It's the second-most points in a single game in Concordia's Division II era (1999-present), and puts him ahead of the former single-season record held by Bryndan Matthews in 2018-19 (546) with one more game to play on Saturday at Winona State at 1 p.m. at McCown Gymnasium.

Kimmons finished the hyper-efficient scoring night with his 38 points coming on 19 shots, hitting 14-19 from the floor, 9-14 from the stripe and 1-2 from three. He added eight rebounds and three assists in a game-high 38 minutes.

On senior night at Concordia, the Golden Bears went right to their sharp-shooting big, drawing a corner three-pointer for Roy Grigsby to give the Golden Bears an early 3-2 advantage. Grigsby finished with 10 points on just four shots in his final home game, going 3-4 from the field, 2-3 from three-point range, 2-2 from the foul line and adding four rebounds.

It was Concordia's last lead of the night, though, as UIU expanded a 9-8 lead at 16:39 of the first into a 15-point margin on the heels of a 14-0 run in less than three minutes of clock. The lead swelled to 41-16 with 8:55 to play in the half before peaking at 55-26 at the 3:27 mark.

The Peacocks built their margin by hitting their first eight three-pointers while converting at a 70-plus percent clip for much of the first half. At the break, UIU was shooting 61.8 percent (21-34) from the field and 66.7 percent (10-15) from the arc while limiting CSP to 36.7 percent (11-30) from the floor and 30.8 percent (4-13) from three.

Nick Reid was the story for UIU, scoring 26 points in the first half on 9-10 shooting and 6-6 three-point shooting.

Like they've done all year, the Golden Bears didn't relent, flipping the percentages in the second half, hitting 62.5 percent (20-32) from the field and 38.5 percent (5-13) from three while the defense stifled the Peacocks in the second half to 40.7 percent (11-27) shooting and 0-6 three-point shooting. Concordia stifled Reid in the second half, too, holding him to 0-4 shooting from the floor as he finished with 28 points on the night.

Despite trailing by as many as 29 points in the first half, Concordia slowly chipped away at the lead in the opening minutes of the second half, bringing it down to 22 (71-49, 14:19) on a Kimmons three-pointer.

UIU kept the lead hanging in the mid 20s, though, leading 79-54 with just over 11 minutes to play when Caden Hoffman delivered a pinpoint pass to a streaking Sunday John for a momentum-shifting two-handed slam to give Concordia some life. Moments later, CSP had the lead down to 20 after Ian Sluice buried a three-pointer. Sluice finished with eight points on 3-4 shooting including a pair of three-pointers.

The Peacocks kept answering, though, pushing it back to a 24-point lead with under eight minutes to play as the clock continued to run out on CSP, as the Golden Bears wouldn't cut it under 20 until the six minute mark on a Sean Mathieu layup to make it 85-67.

It was part of a larger 16-4 CSP run spanning five minutes that was capped by another Mathieu layup as he finished with nine points, with his last bucket cutting the score to 10, 87-77 with three minutes left to play. Matthieu added seven rebounds in 29 minutes on the evening.

Just 16 seconds later, Upper Iowa's scoring leader Jake Hilmer answered in the lane for two of his team-high 29 points and a missed three-pointer by Concordia didn't allow the Golden Bears to slice the margin to single digits.

Another finish by John in the lane with under a minute to go finally brought the margin to nine, 91-82, but with just 47 seconds to go as CSP wasn't able to come closer down the stretch.

The Peacocks shot 80 percent (20-25) at the foul line to help ice the game down the stretch, while CSP finished at 68.4 percent (13-19).

The final shooting tally showed UIU with only a slight overall advantage at 52.5 percent (32-61) to CSP's 50.0 percent (31-62) with three-point shooting also close, with UIU hitting just one more (10-9) despite a strong final percentage (47.6 to 34.6).

Concordia concludes its home season with a winning record, going 7-6 at Gangelhoff Center including a four-game home winning streak near the end of the season. CSP will look to snap a four-game road skid this Saturday afternoon at WSU.