The Oglethorpe men's basketball team got off to a poor start Friday night, falling behind the homestanding Centre Colonels 45-17 at halftime. They played much better in the second half, outscoring their opponent 36-28 over the final 20 minutes, but couldn't overcome the first 20 in a 73-53 defeat in Danville, Kentucky. With the loss, the Stormy Petrels dropped to 6-15 on the season overall and 3-7 in SAA play, and remained in seventh place in the league standings.

The two teams shot at a similar rate, with Centre converting on 43 percent of their field goal attempts and Oglethorpe coming in at 40 percent. The Colonels converted on 37 percent of their 3-point attempts, though, while the Petrels sank just 23 percent of theirs. In addition, Centre shot 82 percent from the line to 59 percent for the visitors. Oglethorpe outscored Centre 26-12 in the paint, but the Colonels responded with a 44-7 advantage off the bench.

Junior guard Chris Lawrence led the Petrels with 12 points on 3-of-5 from the field, while senior forward Drew Patrick added 11 points on 3-of-7 from 3-point range. Senior guard Mike Turner had a solid game for the Petrels off the bench, scoring 5 points while adding 5 rebounds and 3 assists.

The game started off well for the Colonels, as they began with an 18-5 run over the opening 5:20. The Petrels answered with points on consecutive possessions, but Centre began another run from there. They finished the half on a 27-8 stretch over the final 13:15 of the period, leading 45-17 at the break.

The second half began with the Petrels looking to cut into the deficit. They outscored Centre 11-2 over the first four minutes of the period and cut the Colonel lead to 47-28 with 15:55 left. The Colonels put the game away for all intents and purposes, though, with a 16-0 run over a 4:20 stretch of time that game them their largest lead of the game, 63-28, with 11:13 left.

The Petrels played much better the rest of the way from there, as they immediately embarked on a 23-8 run over the next 8:30 and cut the Centre lead to 71-51 with just over two minutes remaining, but the damage was done by that point.

"I really thought we had made some good strides the last few weeks," said Oglethorpe head coach Philip Ponder, "but tonight was certainly a step back. We came back after the first half and played well in the second half, but the damage was already done. The was kind of a gut check for us, and I'm anxious to see how we come out and respond. If we play like we had been playing the previous five games, we can make some noise in the tournament, so we'll look to get back to that on Sunday."

The Petrels travel to Tennessee on Sunday, where they'll take on Sewanee at 4 p.m. Eastern. After that, they'll return home for the final three games of their regular season, starting with games against Birmingham-Southern and Millsaps next weekend.