It wasn’t the ending the Baker men’s basketball team was hoping for, but it fought to the last minute in a 65-60 loss against Graceland University Saturday.

Without a spot in the conference tournament, this was the last game of the season for the men’s team. Tied with about a minute to go in the game, the ‘Cats just couldn’t land the shots needed to pull out a win.

Head coach Rick Weaver said it was a good effort by the men.

“I thought overall the team played pretty well,” Weaver said. “There was a considerable size disadvantage and they beat us badly on the offensive boards, but we played well enough to hang in there the whole night.”

Senior Malcolm Greer led the team offensively, scoring 24 points, which was his second highest career total. Junior Manuel Medina followed with a contribution of 14 points.

“We played pretty good as a team,” senior Brock Entner said. “We played good defense. They had one of the leading scorers in the nation and I think we held him to maybe 10 or 12 points, so we did good in that aspect.”

With the season over, Weaver said he is proud of his team for the level of effort it maintained, despite the obstacles it faced.

“We were a little short-handed, beat up and lacking some size, but I thought the team competed hard and got better as the year went on and gave it their best,” he said. “So I was pleased with their effort.”

Entner said he feels that the men performed well throughout the season, despite the injuries they faced early on.

“I thought we preformed pretty good under the circumstances we were in,” Entner said. “We had a lot of players playing out of position, we got kind of short and we didn’t have as big of a bench as we thought we were going to have because of some injuries.”

For the seniors, this game marked the end of their college careers.

Greer said he is disappointed that the season came to end and wished the team had more time to prove itself.

“I wish that we had another stretch of games just to get things together because I think we really let down some of our fan base and those who were projecting us to be a little higher in the conference,” Greer said. “So I just feel like it was a job left undone for us, or for me at least.”