The Pioneer men's basketball team fell in their battle for third place with the Willamette Bearcats on Saturday night with a final score of 82-77. (Box Score)

After falling to an immediate 2-point deficit, the Pioneers took their first lead of the game off of a layup by Joey Toboni (senior, San Francisco, CA). The Pioneers would extend that lead to 14 after Thomas Tillery (senior, Portland, OR) hit a jumper with 6:39 to play. The Bearcats rallied and ended the half with a buzzer beater 3-point shot by Ricky Thompson to cut the Pioneers' lead to one at the half.

The Bearcats took an early lead in the second half off of a layup by Mike Smith. The Pioneers and Bearcats would tie the game five times before Willamette would take over the lead at the 8:16 mark and hold that lead for the remainder of the game. The Pioneers inched within one point of the Bearcats off of a Tillery layup with only 9 seconds left to play but could not hold on for the win.

 For the Pioneers Thomas Tillery had a game high and impressive 32 points, going 14-19 from the field. The 32 points gave Tillery the 1,000th point of his career.

 With the loss the Pioneers fall to 14-8, 8-6 NWC) and the Willamette Bearcats improve to 11-12, 9-5 NWC), taking sole possession of third place in the Northwest Conference.  The Pioneers are tied for fourth with the Linfield Wildcats. Only the top three finishers in the Conference play in the NWC Tournament to play for the Conference's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. 

The Pioneers next play at Puget Sound on February 22nd at 8pm, and then finish the regular season at Linfield on February 23. Willamette finishes off their schedule with games at Pacific and  Puget Sound. The Pioneers would need the Bearcats to lose both games coupled with a pair of L&C victories in order to secure third place.