The Eastern Michigan University men’s basketball team lost its Sears Bracket Buster game to the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay 54-49 on Saturday in Green Bay.
Senior guard Darrell Lampley came off the bench to lead the Eagles with 13 points and three assists. Junior guard Derek Thompson got his sixth start of the season and contributed 12 points and was 4-for-5 behind the three-point line. Senior guard Antonio Green had six points, six steals and three assists.
For the Green Bay Phoenix (12-14, 7-8 Horizon League), Kam Cerroni and freshman guard Keifer Sykes both scored 10 points and grabbed a steal each. Alec Brown collected nine points and four blocks, and 13 total rebounds.
Eastern Michigan (11-16, 6-6 MAC) jumped out to a 4-0 lead within the first two minutes. Junior forward Jamell Harris fouled Brennan Cougill, who made one of two free throws for GB’s first point.
Green Bay tied the game on a layup from freshman forward Greg Mays and took the lead for the first time in the game with a Cougill layup at the 11:39 mark. Derek Thompson shot and scored a three-pointer to give the Eagles the lead with 10:23 left in the first half.
Green Bay tied the game with a layup by Alec Brown and regained the lead with a jump shot from Cougill with 8:37 left before halftime. Another GB two-point shot was followed by Thompson’s second three-pointer to reduce the GB lead to one. GB went on an 8-4 run for the next six minutes.
With Green Bay ahead by seven with less than a minute to go, J.R. Sims hit a three-point shot with 54 seconds left until halftime to cut the deficit to four. GB took a 24-20 lead into halftime.
Green Bay came out of the half to score five points. The lead got up to 10 points for GB, but Lampley cut it to eight and went on to score 12 second-half points for the Eagles. The Phoenix continued to build their lead and led by 10 points again.
At the 6:41 mark, Thompson scored his third three-pointer with the assist from Lampley to reduce the GB lead to three. Green Bay leaped ahead and led by eight with 2:54 left in the game.
EMU was down by three with 1:50 left in the final half after a three-point shot by Lampley. Keifer Sykes was fouled and made two free throws. Antonio Green was fouled with 24 seconds left and made both free throws to trail by three again. Green fouled Alec Brown with 21 seconds left in the game. Brown made both of his free throws to seal the game for the Phoenix.
Despite losing, Eastern Michigan had 26 bench points to Green Bay’s 14. EMU also had 15 points off turnovers while GB had seven. Green Bay had 41 total rebounds while EMU had 29. The Phoenix had an 83.3 free throw percentage while the Eagles had a 50.0 free throw percentage from the free throw stripe. GB had 15 fouls while EMU recorded 19.
Eastern Michigan returns home to play Northern Illinois Wednesday at the Convocation Center for a 7 p.m. tip-off.
