OMAHA, Neb. – Despite a hard-fought final five minutes, first-half turnovers and an extended shooting drought in the second half handcuffed the Drake University men's basketball team in a 75-73 loss at Omaha Wednesday, Nov. 29, evening.  
 
The Bulldogs had five players scoring in double-figures with Nick McGlynn (Stoughton, Wis.) and Graham Woodward (Edina, Minn.) each scoring 13 points while Reed Timmer (New Berlin, Wis.) added 12 points to move into seventh all-time in career scoring at Drake with 1,478 career points.
 
Omaha (1-7) shot 50 percent on its home floor with Zach Jackson scoring 17 points while Daniel Norl went 4-of-5 from the three-point arc to finish with 16 points.
 
"Give Omaha credit, they obviously made more plays than we made to win the game," said Drake head coach Niko Medved. "We've handled the ball well all year, but were just out of sorts and sloppy, which was disappointing. Clearly, when you let another team shoot 50 percent on their home floor, it's going to be difficult to win."
 
Drake (4-2) faced a three-point, 34-31, halftime deficit and opened the early minutes of the second half by making five-straight shots at one points as part of a 13-2 run that gave Drake a 53-46 lead in just two minutes.
 
However, the Bulldogs went scoreless for the next five minutes with five-straight misses as Omaha rolled off 11-points to take a 57-53 lead with nine minutes remaining in the contest. Drake's field goal drought stretched out to more than eight minutes, allowing the Mavericks to build a 67-60 lead with 5:30 left in the contest with two additional three-pointers from Norl helping build that cushion.
 
"We weren't keeping it very simple and trying to do too much," Medved said of the drought. "We haven't looked like that offensively all year and we did tonight. We didn't play with the pace we had been."
 
Drake rallied back to within a possession five times in the final five minutes on shots from Timmer and Woodward, but could not overtake the Mavericks.
 
In the first half, turnovers on five-straight possessions helped key a 13-0 Omaha run to put the Mavs up 22-13 with nine minutes remaining in the half. That margin had the potential to be more significant, but Drake's defense held the Mavericks to 5-of-17 shooting through the first 10 minutes of the contest. The Bulldogs committed 10 of their 17 turnovers in the game during the first half.
 
After a timeout to regroup the team, the Bulldogs were more deliberate with the ball, committing just one turnover in the final 10 minutes of the half to trim the margin to three with four minutes to play and two points, 30-28, with 1:45 left in the period. A three-pointer by Woodward on Drake's final possession helped Drake carry a three-point, 34-31, deficit into the locker room.
 
The Bulldogs remain on the road for their next contest to travel to the thin air of Laramie, Wyo., to face Wyoming Saturday evening. Tipoff is set for 5 p.m. CST.