MILWAUKEE (2/9/2023) -- Graduate senior and the nation's leading scorer
Antoine Davis tied his season high with 42 points and the Titans turned a 19-point second-half deficit into a lead, but could not hold on as the University of Detroit Mercy men's basketball team dropped a 94-89 contest at Milwaukee on Thursday night.
Davis - who now has three 40-point games on the year and seven in his career - buried 13 field goals with seven 3-pointers, while also registering five rebounds and four assists. He scored 30 of his 42 points in the second half and now has 3,441 career points, 226 shy of Pete Maravich's NCAA record 3,667, while his 13 field goals moved him to 10th all-time in NCAA history with 1,150.
Senior
Gerald Liddell scored 17 points and grabbed seven rebounds and graduate senior
A.J. Oliver recorded 12 points, a career-tying three steals, two assists and two rebounds.
Detroit Mercy (10-16, 6-9 HL), who trailed by 19 at the break and again early in the second half, had a one-point lead, 87-86, with 1:44 left after Oliver and Davis hit a pair of free throws. Milwaukee (17-8, 11-4 HL) scored four in a row after that when two free throws by Davis made it a 91-89 game with 39 seconds left, but they could not pull off the comeback.
Graduate senior
Buay Koka had four points and a team and career-high nine boards and graduate senior
TJ Moss tallied six points, four rebounds, three assists and three steals. Senior
Arashma Parks pulled down seven boards, five of those offensive caroms.
Detroit Mercy found itself down by 17, 56-39, at the 16:38 mark when Moss hit a free throw and then the red, white and blue knocked in three-straight 3-pointers for a 10-0 run. Davis started that shooting barrage with a triple and off a steal by freshman
Isaiah Jones, Moss found the rookie and he hit a three before Oliver came up with a steal, and Jones found him behind the arc and his trey had the team within nine, 56-49, with 13:08 left.
A minute later, Moss would connect on a triple to pull the squad to five, 57-52.
Milwaukee would raise the lead back to double digits at 63-52, but back-to-back 3-pointers by Oliver and Davis cut it to five again at 63-58 with 10:41 left.
The Titans would take the lead on another 10-0 run as Davis rang in a three and Koka got inside for a dunk. Two free throws from Davis put the team up by one, 68-67, and off a steal by junior
Kyle LeGreair, Davis got inside for a basket and it was a 70-67 Titan advantage with seven minutes remaining.
The Titans also led by three at 73-70 as Davis made another from distance with 6:24 on the clock, but the Panthers would come back to take a four-point advantage twice. It was 79-75, when Liddell split two free throws and Davis tied it at 79-all with a three, and again at 83-79 with 4:21 on the clock when Davis had a jumper and Oliver hit two free throws to knot it up with 3:31 to go.
The Titans shot 40.0% from the field and were 12-of-30 from three and 21-of-24 (87.5%) at the free-throw line. They also dominated the glass, 43-27, with 25 offensive rebounds, and came away with 11 steals.
Liddell had four early points as the score was tied at 4-4. Two free throws from Davis followed by a three gave the Titans a 9-8 lead at the 16:11 mark.
Milwaukee would go on a 13-0 run until two free throws by Liddell ended that. A triple by graduate senior
Damezi Anderson got the team within nine, 23-14, with 12:01 left in the half. Liddell also pulled the team within nine at 25-16 at the 10:21 mark, but the Panthers would race to a 42-24 advantage with under four minutes to go.
Davis would trim the deficit to 13 twice, first with a 3-pointer at 3:03 to make it 42-29 and then again with two free throws with 2:27 remaining for a 44-31 score, but the Panthers took a 50-31 lead at the break.
The Titans started chipping away as back-to-back baskets from Liddell and Davis had the team down 54-39, three minutes into the second half.
Detroit Mercy will be back in action on Saturday as it travels to Green Bay for a 7:00 p.m. (EST) tip on campus at the Kress Center.
Game Notes:
- Milwaukee won the season series and now leads the all-time series, 31-29, including 18-11 at home
- Detroit Mercy has outrebounded its opponents in 13 of the last 18 games and 17 times on the season as the Titans came into the contest fourth in the HL in rebounding at 35.9 per game and tops in the league and 42nd in the nation with 12.20 offensive rebounds per contest
- The +16 rebounding margin was the most since the +33 effort (53-20) at Youngstown State in 2016
- The Titans have now connected on double-digit 3-pointers in 15 games and are first in the Horizon League and 10th in the nation at 38.9% from three, as well as first in the HL and eighth in the country with 10.3 per game
- The Titans have connected on double-digit free throws in 17 games on the season and are third in the Horizon League and 39th in the nation in free-throw percentage at 75.2%
- The 11 steals were the second most on the season behind the 12 the Titans had at home against Cleveland State
- The Titans had won their last four games when scoring at least 85 points
- Davis has had some of his biggest games against the Panthers as he came into the game averaging 30.7 points and 5.0 assists in seven career games, shooting 48.2% (68-141) from the field, 47.4% (37-78) from three and 93.3% (42-45) at the line.
- Davis came into the game leading the nation in scoring, total points, total 3-pointers, 3-pointers per game and total field goals
- Davis now has 98 career 20-point games, 35 career 30-point outings and seven 40-point contests in 137 games - reaching 17 points in 119 of them - and has a league-best 21, 20-point games, nine 30-point outings and three 40-point outbursts
- Davis came into the game third all-time in NCAA history with 3.99, three-point field goals per game and leading the nation this year at 4.56 per contest
- Davis has now made a three in 132 of his 137 collegiate games, with 75 career games with four or more triples, 30 with six or more, 15 games with seven or more, and has five times connected on 10 or more
- Davis moved past Dennis Boyd (1973-77 - 563) into third place in school history with 566 assists and is 45 outside of second place and 49 away from first
- Liddell has now been in double figures in 13 of his 16 games
- Moss has handed out at least three assists 13 times on the season
- Moss' career high is four steals
- Oliver has scored in double figures seven times on the season
- Oliver's other three-steal game came in 2020 against Texas-San Antonio
- Koka's previous high in rebounds was eight against Oakland in 2020
- Parks now has 24 rebounds in the last four games
