ORANGE—There's one thing you can say about the Occidental men's basketball team: they rally.

But catching fire late doesn't always erase cool-shooting from earlier in the game. After clawing their way back from a 13-point second-half deficit against UC Santa Cruz, the Tigers hit three consecutive threes to take a one-point lead, before falling 68-65 at Chapman.

Kris Montoya (Portland, Ore.) started the trend, Ryan Chong (San Diego) followed suit, and thenEric Leider (Las Vegas) hit his three in the corner with 3:04 remaining to give the Tigers a 65-64 lead.

But Jared Ponce responded with a pair of free throws to put UC Santa Cruz back up one and the Tigers went without another point for the rest of the game.

The Tigers (4-7) shot just 35.4 percent from the field and 35.7 percent (5-for-14) from the charity stripe, and couldn't seem to sustain a collective rhythm throughout. Oftentimes the team committed ticky-tack fouls and the starts and stops of the whistle halted the Tigers' momentum.

"We took the loss today, but we played hard, especially towards the end," Leider said. "Nobody was on fire. We had streaks where we hit a few but then would miss. Sometimes it goes in and sometimes it doesn't, but we can always improve our shooting."

UCSC (5-10) had no trouble on the offensive end, though, putting in 47.2 percent of their field goals and 70 percent of their free throws, muscling their way into the paint in transition for layups. Though Oxy's active full-court press forced 19 Banana Slug turnovers (12 of which were in the first half), Oxy lost the rebounding battle 47-33.

"Santa Cruz outhustled and outrebounded us today," Occidental head coach Brian Newhall said. "We need to be sharper and play with more of a sense of urgency if we want to win close games."

Leider and Chong added 18 and 11 points respectively for the Tigers.

"I think every day we're playing better as a team," Leider said. "We're really buying into the system, and everyone has each other's backs. We'll be a lot better when SCIAC comes around."

Three players scored in double figures for the Banana Slugs: Trent Reeves had 21 points, James Townsend had 17 points and seven rebounds and Spencer Wells added 10 points.

Oxy will return to Rush Gymnasium on Jan. 2 to face off against Emerson College. Tipoff is set for 6 p.m.  

"I am confident that we will bounce back against a good Emerson team on Wednesday," Newhall said. "Our guys are working very hard."

Mirin Fader is the Oxy men's basketball beat writer. She also writes feature stories on Oxy athletes, coaches and alums. She is currently a Team Writer for the Los Angeles Clippers (Clippers.com), and also contributes articles to Dime Magazine (dimemag.com). This past summer, Mirin wrote for the WNBA's Los Angeles Sparks. All of her work, including her archived Oxy stories can be found at her website: mirinfader.com