Duluth, Minn. - UMD men's basketball battled all night to be right on the doorstep of a victory on Saturday, but it'd ultimately come up just short. The Bulldogs lost an 87-82 contest against Augustana, closing the weekend with a 1-1 split. UMD's record is now 15-7, its NSIC mark 11-5. 

The Bulldogs proved pretty quickly that they weren't going to bend the knee to the Vikings in this one. It was UMD that secured the first sizable advantage of the entire contest, going up 18-11 by way of a Joshua Brown three at the 11:57 mark of the first frame. Even to this point, the Bulldogs had led in some capacity most of the way- this three-score lead just seemed like a culmination of that effort. 

But the Vikings weren't ones to be intimidated by finding themselves in an early hole. Instead, they simply dug themselves right back out of it. Emphasis on the expediency- it took Augustana just under two minutes to have knotted the game back up at 18-all. From there, the Vikings were able to keep riding the wave to more success. Augustana had soon compiled a decent lead of its own at 26-19 with 7:50 on the clock. That means it took the Vikings about four minutes  to orchestrate a game-changing 15-1 run. 

The next sequence would prove to establish a bit of a pattern throughout Saturday's contest. UMD was able to claw itself all the way back to within two points of a tie by the 6:52 mark, the score sitting at 26-24 Vikings. Just a minute and change removed from this tension, Augustana had rebuilt its cushion with another 5-0 effort to ultimately be back up seven at 31-24 with just 5:43 to play in the frame. 

If you had any doubts that this would in fact be a trend, something similar happened again right before the break. UMD had done good, gradual work throughout the remaining bits of the first frame to leave it down just three points at 38-35 Augie with only 1:27 to go until halftime. The Vikings got a lot of mileage out of this brief window- they used it to go on a 5-1 stretch to *again* find themselves up by seven at 43-36 as the teams hit their locker rooms.

It had been Drew Blair that had led the Bulldogs throughout this mixed bag of a first frame. The guard tallied 12 points on 4-7 shooting from the field, including a 3-5 clip from deep. Blair also had four rebounds and three assists to his name through 20 minutes. Another noticeable name was Joshua Strong, who paired four points and three assists with a team-leading five rebounds through a half of play.

As a team, the Bulldogs shot especially well in the first half, closing at an overall mark of 13-26 from the field. The problem is, Augustana was working at the same efficiency rate- but at an increased level of production. The Vikings finished the first half shooting 18-36 from the field. Three players had eight points or more to show for their role in the effort. Jadan Graves had led the way with 10 points on 4-7 shooting. Right behind him was Ryan Miller (nine) and Isaac Fink (eight points to go with four assists). 

History sure seemed like it was repeating itself through the early stages of the second frame. A 10-4 UMD run to open the half saw the Bulldogs down just one point once again at 46-47. 5-0 run (or something akin to it) incoming from the visiting team, right? Well, not exactly- things seemed to be evolving. The Vikings instead went on a 16-6 streak to secure a 63-52 lead, the first double-digit advantage the game had seen thus far, with 10:53 to go. 

A lead like this made the Bulldogs' game of mini battle-backs a little harder to accomplish, so much so that by the 6:58 mark of the half, Augustana was still up two digits at 70-60. As far as we can tell, though, 6:58 doesn't equal triple zeros. The Bulldogs continued to fight accordingly. And with just 2:07 remaining in the game, UMD was able to look up at the big board and see the fruits of its labor represented by a mere 74-71 Augie advantage. That entails an 11-4 breakthrough from that earlier 70-60 mark.

But this Vikings team was simply not to be denied on Saturday, something it proved again in a pinch. With all momentum seemingly swung against it, Augustana buckled down and got right back to work. The result: a 9-6 run over about a minute and a half to leave the Vikings with a 83-77 lead that, given the whole 30 seconds left on the clock thing, felt rather secure. 

That probably would have been the case if this game had behaved normally. Well…

With just 18 seconds remaining, Blair went up for a three. That's not all that unusual. It even went in- still not finding any abnormalities just yet. Here's the kicker- a foul was also called on Augustana. Not on Blair either before or after he started his shooting motion- no sir. Fink was booked elsewhere on the court for fouling Strong. That sent Strong to the line. Thing is, that Blair three ball? Still counted. So when Strong stepped up to the charity stripe, he did so with a chance at sealing the deal on an elusive five-point possession.  

Swish and swish. Just like that, the game was suddenly, miraculously 83-82 Augie.

It seemed a little too perfect- ultimately, it was. The reality of the remaining 18 seconds is that the Vikings would continue to cash in on their three throws until the final score read 87-82. There'd be no storybook ending in Romano on Saturday.

And if you're looking for a primary culprit behind this, you might start with Fink. The senior guard led his team in the second frame with 10 points, but that's far from the full story. Eight of those tallies came from perfect 8-8 shooting from the line down the stretch. Fink misses even one of those freebies, and who knows what happens.

But it was hard to imagine a world where the Vikings could miss from the stripe towards the end of the game at all. Augustana's free throw shooting finished at 19-20 overall in the half, a completion percentage of 95%. In other words, pretty good- basically all you could ever ask for.

The craziest thing, though, is that UMD almost shot just as well from the line in crunch time. The Bulldogs went 18-21 from the stripe in the last 20 minutes, an 85.7% make percentage. It's a game of inches, this sport is- for as crazy as it seems to stack these two figures against each other, the difference between them still proved to be important.

Speaking of importance, arguably no one was as integral to their team's efforts on Saturday than Blair. The redshirt-senior guard closed the game with 33 total points on impressive 9-15 shooting from the field and 6-10 shooting from deep. He also amassed five rebounds while being tied with Strong for the team lead in assists with four. 

Speaking of Blair… it was a milestone night for the guard, even in defeat. 

Those 33 points were more than enough to propel Blair to fifth all-time on UMD's scoring charts, surpassing Josh Quigley's 1718 in the process. The guard now has a total of 1743 points to his name. The craziest thing is, there's still plenty of room for him to move up the charts. Blair now needs just five points to edge out Chris Neumann's career tally of 1747 and make the jump to No. 4. Certainly a storyline to keep an eye on next weekend.

Three other Bulldogs also ended the night in double-figures for scoring. Austin Andrews had 13 points on a 5-9 effort from the field to go with a seven rebounds mark that was tied with Strong for highest on the squad. Charlie Katona had 10 points on 4-6 shooting, adding two assists to the mix. Brown rounded out the list with 10 points (built heavily on a 5-5 effort from the line) that he coupled with two steals.

There was a two-way tie between Fink and Miller for the role of Vikings' leading scorer on Saturday. Both tallied 18 points. Funny enough, these two also stood alone- well, alone together- in the rebounding race with eight a pop. Three other Vikings finished the night in double digits, those being Graves (17), Akoi Akoi (12) and Sam Rensch (12).