UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS, Ohio – Otterbein men's basketball culminated a regular season unlike any other Saturday night, dropping the second game of the weekend double-header with John Carroll, 81-64.

The loss for the Cardinals drops their season record to 2-6, while the Blue Streaks wrap up their regular season at 4-3. Both sides will now await results from around the conference to help determine seeding for the Ohio Athletic Conference tournament, set to begin on Monday.
 
HOW IT HAPPENED:

• The sides went blow-for-blow to open game two with the lead changing hands three times over the first 11 minutes. JCU eventually started to build a lead (27-20) at the 7:57 mark.
   
• The Cards fought their way back to reclaim the lead (36-35) with two minutes left in the half. An offensive rebound by Dallas Patrick turned into a Brennan Rains triple to push the Cards ahead.
   
• JCU answered the Cards by quickly taking the lead back following a layup from Emmet Chambers, and free throws by Hugh Brown. The hosts ultimately took a 39-38 advantage into halftime.
   
• Justin Carter started the second half knocking down a triple to once again pull the Cards ahead, 41-39.
   
• The two sides traded buckets over the next five minutes before JCU began to pull away.
   
• In an eight-minute stretch, between 13:46 and 5:27, the Blue Streaks went on a 16-6 run that proved to be too much for the Cardinals to overcome.
   

INSIDE THE BOX SCORE:

• Freshman guards Brennan Rains (15 points) and Cam Evans (14 points) paced the Cardinal offense, each setting a season-high mark.
   
• Otterbein hung tough with JCU on the boards, giving up a slight rebounding margin of 43-36, but held the Blue Streaks to just nine second chance points.
   
• John Carroll shot it much better from deep in its home gym, knocking down 10 of 21 triples compared to a 7 of 25 effort on Friday night.
   
• The Cards hit on 6 of their 13 attempts from behind the arc in the first half to keep things close, but only found the bottom of the net on 2 of 10 triples in the second half.
   

UP NEXT:

Otterbein will be the No. 8 seed in the OAC Tournament, heading to play regular-season champion Marietta come Tuesday evening in a quarterfinal matchup. The bracket will only feature eight teams this year, as both Capital and Baldwin Wallace will unfortunately miss the postseason due to CoVID-19 medical protocols.