OKLAHOMA CITY - Some nights in sports, your opponent does something special that makes life difficult, seemingly regardless of what you do. Tuesday night was one of those nights for the Mid-America Christian University men's basketball team.

MACU (12-9, 5-8 SAC) watched as the Oklahoma City University Stars (12-7, 7-6 SAC) made 19 3-pointers in the game, including 12 of 16 tries from deep in the second half, and the Evangels took the loss from OCU 97-81.

The teams traded shots in the opening moments. OCU scored, and MACU answered their scores with identical buckets, on four of their first five shots, and with 3:52 elapsed in the game, the score was tied at 10-10. With the score tied at 20 and 9:48 to play, MACU scored nine straight points to take a 27-20 lead with 7:23 to play, and at the intermission, MACU led 37-35.

The second half was a completely different story. MACU shot the ball well in the final 20 minutes, making 46% of their shots, 4 of 10 3-pointers, and 16 of 19 (84.2%) free throws, but the Stars blistered the nets. OCU made 75% (18 of 24) shots in the second half, including 13 of 16 (81.3%) from long range after the intermission. The Exangels battled, but ultimately were unable to wrestle control back from OCU as the clock wound down, and the Stars took the win, 97-81.

Charles Beauregard, Jr. puttogether his second straight 20-point game, and he was joined in double figures by Bogle and Ford.Anthony Black led the Evangels with four rebounds and four assists in the game. The Evangels made 24 of 51 (47.1%) shots in the game, and 8 of 24 (33.3%) 3-point shots, and 25 of 31 (80.6%) from the charity stripe. 

MACU will face what ammounts to a must-win game against Texas Wesleyan University (10-11, 5-8 SAC) on Thursday at 6 p.m. at the Gaulke Center on MACU's campus.