HOUSTON – The Western Michigan men's basketball team dropped the final game of the Owl Invitational, 63-57, to Georgia Southern on Sunday afternoon at Rice's Tudor Fieldhouse.
 
Trailing by 10 at halftime, 37-27, Western Michigan (2-4) scored the first six points out of the locker room to trim the deficit to 37-33. The Broncos held Georgia Southern (3-3) without a point for nearly four minutes to start the period.
 
At the 15:09 mark, Lamar Norman Jr. converted an old-fashioned three-point play to get WMU back to within a point, 39-38. The next four points went to the Eagles, but Seth Hubbard answered with a triple to close the gap to 43-41. GSU responded with an 8-0 run to boost its lead back to 10, 51-41, at the midway point of the half.
 
The Georgia Southern cushion vacillated between seven and 10 points until a Markeese Hastings lay-in at the 2:36 mark got Western Michigan to within five, 57-52. A Norman triple with 1:14 remaining trimmed the margin to 59-55, but the Eagles sank a few free throws in the final minute to hold off the Broncos and pick up the victory.  
 
Norman paced the Broncos in scoring for the fourth consecutive game, as he netted a game-high 23 points, including six three-pointers. Hastings collected a game-high 12 rebounds to help Western Michigan claim a 37-36 rebounding edge, while Jefferson Monegro handed out a career-high six assists. Titus Wright chipped in eight points and seven rebounds for WMU.
 
With the game knotted at 12-12 in the early going, Georgia Southern made three-pointers on three consecutive possessions to jump ahead, 21-12. The Broncos got within seven, 24-17, but the Eagles rattled off 11 of the next 13 points to extend their lead to 35-19 with 3:54 remaining until the break. Western Michigan finished the period strong, ending the half on an 8-2 run to trim the deficit to 37-27 at halftime.
 
Western Michigan struggled from the floor, as it made 19-of-51 (37.3 percent) field goal attempts. The Broncos hit 7-of-16 (43.8 percent) from three-point range and went 12-of-15 (80.0 percent) from the charity stripe. Georgia Southern connected on 40.3 percent from the field. The Eagles started off hot from beyond the arc, hitting eight of their first 11 from downtown, but the WMU defense tightened, and GSU missed its final 11 three-point attempts.
 
WMU returns to University Arena on Saturday, Nov. 26, to take on Cleveland State. Tip is slated for 12 pm between the Broncos and the Vikings. To purchase tickets to any Western Michigan men's basketball home game this season, visit wmubroncos.com/tickets.