By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

MACOMB, Ill. — It was a defeat that felt oh-so-familiar.

Western Illinois’ 77-58 men’s basketball loss to Little Rock on Thursday night at Western Hall was the 22nd defeat of the season, and it featured so much of the things that have doomed the Leathernecks all season.

The final score was not indicative of the chances Western Illinois (5-22 overall, 1-15 Ohio Valley Conference) had in this game. The Leathernecks were within 56-51 with 7:19 to play, 59-53 with 5:44 left, then the Trojans (10-16, 7-8) pulled away.

“Just a lack of execution,” fifth-year forward Isaiah Griffin said. “Turnovers. Long rebounds that led to transition baskets for them.”

Something that’s happened all season.

“Yeah, definitely,” Griffin said.

The Leathernecks were coming off Tuesday’s 79-70 win over Eastern Illinois, a victory that snapped a 14-game losing streak, and Little Rock was coming in on a six-game losing streak.

“You could kind of feel a little bit of (momentum) in practice (on Wednesday), and I thought we were going to come out in this game with it.”

Instead, after leading 13-12 with 10 minutes gone in the first half, Western Illinois let the Trojans go on a 9-0 run to take a lead they wouldn’t surrender.

“We had every opportunity in the first half to do some things,” Western Illinois coach Chad Boudreau said. “I thought offensively … I told the team at halftime that was one of the worst offensive performances I had seen in a long time, and I mean a long time. It was just a bad half of basketball for us.”

Still, the Leathernecks could have gone into halftime only down single digits before Little Rock’s Truman Claytor IV hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer to give the Trojans a 35-24 lead.

“Things like that have happened to us all year,” Boudreau said.

Little Rock led by as much as 16 points early in the second half before the Leathernecks went on an 11-2 run to get back into the game.

“They weren’t making the shots in transition like they had been making,” Griffin said. “And we tried to feed off that.”

“We started getting stops,” Boudreau said. “Then we were getting long rebounds and getting out in transition. We were able to attack, get downhill, get good looks.”

The Leathernecks’ defense also kept Little Rock out of the inside, especially when forward Ifiok Peter entered the game. Peter was the only Leatherneck with a positive plus-minus after the game.

“He gave us a lot of energy,” Griffin said.

But the Leathernecks couldn’t sustain their play, and the Trojans pulled away.

Lucas Lorenzen led the Leathernecks with 19 points. Griffin added 11.

Claytor and Cameron Wallace each had 16 points for Little Rock, but Johnathan Lawson had the most impressive line of the game – 13 points, 14 rebounds and 10 assists, the first triple-double in OVC play since December, 2024.

Western Illinois was officially eliminated from making it to the OVC tournament — the top eight in the 11-team conference go.

“I’m going to be doing the same thing I’ve been doing for the last couple of weeks before this, and that is  just encouraging the guys to play hard, represent Western Illinois, and then it’s an evaluation time for me,” Boudreau said. “Evaluate everyone and everything going into the offseason, and go from there.”

Photo: Western Illinois’ Antwaun Massey tries to score inside in the second half. (Photo from WIU Athletic Communications)