DETROIT (12/15/2018) -- The University of Detroit Mercy men's basketball team, down 19 points with 11:26 left in regulation, pieced together a furious rally that fell just short in a 63-61 loss to Ohio on Saturday at Calihan Hall.

Freshman Antoine Davis scored a team-high 19 points for Detroit Mercy (3-8). His fade-away jumper with 1:14 left capped a 28-8 run that gave the Titans their first lead in nearly 27 minutes of play.

But Ohio (7-3) countered with a triple by Teyvion Kirk on its next possession, which gave the Bobcats a 63-61 advantage that would hold through the final buzzer.

Freshman Chris Brandon led all Titans in rebounds with nine, which also tied a season-high. He chipped in six points off the bench.

Junior Harrison Curry joined Davis as the lone Titans in double figures with 12 points.

Senior Josh McFolley and graduate student Derrien King each had three steals for Detroit Mercy, which totaled 12 as a team.

Detroit Mercy opened the game with a Davis jumper and raced out to an 11-5 lead after a 3-pointer by the star freshman. But Ohio kept pace with the Titans and ultimately took a 36-30 lead into halftime.

The Bobcats turned on the jets after the break, going on a 16-3 run which pushed its lead to 19 points. 

Detroit Mercy wouldn't go away and quickly chipped away at Ohio's advantage. The Titans' 28-8 run that spanned 10 minutes was fueled by excellent free throw shooting and clutch play on defense.

During that run, the Titans converted on 12-of-14 shots from the free throw line and grabbed five steals as a team. The wealth of points were shared, as Davis had nine points in the run, followed by eight from Curry and four from McFolley.

After Kirk's 3-pointer allowed Ohio to retake the lead with 46 seconds remaining in regulation, the Titans had one more shot at earning a hard-fought victory, but a shot at the buzzer just missed its target.

The Titans wrap up non-conference play with a trip to Xavier on Friday, Dec. 21 at 7 p.m. The game can be seen live on FS2 and will be broadcasted over the air waves on 910 AM Superstation.

First Half

• Davis scored the game's first points on a jumper, and over four minutes into play, gave the Titans a 11-5 lead with a 3-pointer
• The lead was short lived, however, as Ohio scored three of the next four baskets, tying the game at 12-12 on a triple by Ben Vander Plas
• Back-to-back triples by McFolley and King pushed the Titans' advantage to 18-12 with just under 12 minutes left
• But Ohio wouldn't relent and kept pace with Detroit Mercy, before taking its first lead of the game, 21-20, with 7:46 remaining
• The teams traded baskets the next four minutes, forcing a 30-30 tie with 2:59 left, but Ohio scored six unanswered points, including a layup at the buzzer, to take a 36-30 lead into the break
  Davis led all scorers in the first half with 10 points on 4-for-9 shooting

Second Half

• Ohio stayed hot after the break, opening the second half with a 16-3 run that nearly spanned the first eight minutes of the half
• A triple by Curry with 11:22 left ended Ohio's run, and coincidentally, kick-started a lengthy 11-1 Detroit Mercy run, which saw the Titans shrink their deficit to 53-44 over the next three minutes
• Davis sunk a 3-pointer with 6:43 left to make it a six-point game for the first time since halftime
• Curry converted a three-point play to pull the Titans within six again, 58-52, and a tip-in layup by the junior and a pair of free throws by freshman Marquis Moore and a free throw by junior Tra'Quan Knight made it a one point game, 58-57, with 3:14 left
• A Davis fade-away jumper with 1:14 remaining gave the Titans their first lead, 61-60, in 27 minutes of play
• But Ohio countered with a triple by Teyvion Kirk, which gave the Bobcats a 63-61 lead that held through the buzzer, despite a last-second attempt by the Titans

• The Titans trail the all-time series, 3-1
• Davis came into the game second in the nation in scoring at 27.6 points per game and leading the nation with 54, 3-pointers and 5.40, 3-pointers per game
• Brandon also had nine rebounds at Temple
• Curry was in double digits for the second-straight game
• McFolley recorded his 20th career game with three or more steals and now has 168 in his career
• McFolley passed Doug Chappell for 27th place in school history with 1,174 points