UNI Losses to Bradley, 69-65

Bradley's Walt Lemon Jr. scored 24 of his 28 points in the second half to lead the Braves past the University of Northern Iowa men's basketball team on Wednesday at Carver Arena.

UNI junior Seth Tuttle recorded is 1,000th career point in the second half and scored a team-high 20 points in the loss. Tuttle and sophomore guard Wes Washpun led a UNI comeback after the Panthers's trailed 55-46 with 10:08 left in the second half. Tuttle and Washpun scored 13 of UNI's final 19 points.

Freshman guard Jeremy Morgan tied the game at 61-61 with 1:43 left on a 3-pointer from the left wing. Morgan contributed 10 points off the bench for the Panthers.

Bradley's Auston Barnes grabbed a missed shot and put it back in to give the Braves a 63-61 lead with 1:11 left. Tuttle answered back on the Panthers's end by hitting two free throws with 1:01 left in the game to knot it at 63-63.

Lemon Jr. hit another jumper with 31 seconds left to put Bradley on top for good. UNI turned the ball over on its next possession and Bradley's Tyshon Pickett drained two free throws with 15 seconds left to give Bradley a four-point cushion.

Washpun knocked in two free throws with 11 seconds left to cut the lead back to two. Bradley then inbounded the ball and UNI forced a jump ball - but the possession arrow was in favor of the Braves with 5.4 seconds left. Bradley got the ball in to Lemon Jr. and he was fouled with 2.2 seconds left. He hit both free throws to ice it for the Braves.

"We scrapped pretty hard in the first half but then we didn't execute on our final possession of the half and Bradley threw in the shot at the buzzer," UNI head coach Ben Jacobson said. "That got them back in the game. It was potentially a five-point swing in our favor."

Bradley improved to 8-12 on the year and 3-4 in the MVC.

Next Up: UNI (10-9 overall, 4-3 MVC) will be back in action on Saturday at Loyola. Tip is set for 3 p.m. at Gentile Arena.