The Eastern Michigan University Men’s Basketball team fell at home to the Detroit Mercy Titans by a score of 98-89 after taking the Titans to overtime.
Eastern Michigan scored 89 points despite the loss, which is the most the Eagles have scored this season. Two different halves highlighted the game: a defensive-minded first half and an offensive-minded second half.
Detroit Mercy won the first half 33-25 but lost the second half 52-44, with the score 77-77 heading into overtime. In overtime, Detroit Mercy defeated the Eagles 21-12 to improve to 4-5 on the season.
In the first half, the Titans led the entirety from the time they made a three in their first possession of the game. They led by as many as 10 points when the score was 22-12. The Eagles cut the lead to four when the score was 27-23 before the Titans eventually went back up by eight to close the first half.
In the second half, Eastern Michigan slowly erased an eight-point deficit. In the first two minutes of the second half, they were down by 10 points, 37-27. The Titans' lead reached 13 points with 11:46 to play.
After that, the Eagles outscored the Titans 35-22 the rest of regulation. With just under five minutes to play, the Eagles tied the game at 67. Additionally, they had their first lead of the game with just over three minutes left when Jaylin Billingsley (Cleveland, Ohio/Lutheran East/Georgetown) sank a three-pointer to make it 72-71 Eastern Michigan.
The Eagles had one other lead in regulation when Christian Henry (Chicago, Illinois/The Skill Factory/Panola College) made a three-pointer to give the Eagles a 77-75 lead before Detroit Mercy made a layup to tie the game game, and the Eagles couldn’t do anything to match it the last five seconds.
Overtime was where things went downhill for Eastern Michigan. Detroit Mercy started the period on a 10-run to go ahead, 79-77. The closest the Eagles cut it to after that was five when they trailed 89-84. The game would end on a 9-5 run by the Titans.
The game was the first Overtime game Eastern Michigan was a part of this season and their first since March 8, last season, when they lost to Central Michigan in Mount Pleasant by a score of 65-62.
Performances of note include Christian Henry scoring 28 points while making nine shots, collecting four rebounds, and dishing out five assists. He played 44 45 minutes and fouled out of the game late.
Da’Sean Nelson had 24 points for Eastern Michigan, five rebounds, three assists, and two steals, meaning that Eastern Michigan had two players score over 20 points.
Arne Osojnik (Ljubljana, Slovenia/Dream City Christian) scored 13 points to have the other double-digit game for the Eagles. He also pulled down five rebounds to go with his performance.
Detroit Mercy had two former Eastern Michigan Eagles play in the game, Legend Geeter and Orlando Lovejoy. They had 18 and 14 points for the Titans to be two of six players to finish in double digits. Geeter averaged over 5 points per game and Lovejoy averaged nearly 10 for Eastern Michigan.
Eastern Michigan finds themselves at the 5-3 mark on the season. It is the second consecutive season in which they have started two games above .500, and the last time they did that was back in the 2016-17 and 2017-18 seasons. Before jumping into the conference schedule, they have four more non-conference games: two at home against Purdue Fort-Wayne and Wright State and two on the road at Davidson and Loyola Chicago.
The Eagles will be on the road on Tuesday, Dec. 3, in the Windy City, facing the Ramblers of Loyola Chicago. Tip-Off is set for 8:30 p.m. and will be streamed on ESPN+.
