Despite holding a 19-point lead in the second half, the men’s basketball team slipped away with a 88-84 win over Tennessee State Thursday night at Lantz Arena.

The win broke Eastern’s losing streak, having lost seven of its last nine games.

The Panthers (15-14, 7-8) watched their lead slip away as the Tigers (11-16, 7-9) took their first lead of the game within the final minutes of play.

“It’s all about grits and how much you want it,” junior J.R.Reynolds said. “You’ve got to get tough – all heart. It’s the first time in a sticky situation that I knew we were going to win tonight.”

With under two minutes to play, sophomore guard Jason Wright rebounded a deflected Tiger shot and took it down the court to make an eventual layup with 59 seconds on the clock and a 83-80 score.

The key play of the game for the Panthers was junior guard Craig Lewis’ steal and fastbreak layup with 43 seconds left in the game. That bucket pulled the Panthers ahead 85-80, but the Tigers wouldn’t give up yet.

Tennessee State’s Olushala Ajanaku, who scored a game-high 29 points, went to the line completing both attempts. The next three scores were made at the line with Wright, Todd Bergmann and Reynolds each making one of their two shots at the line.

In the final seconds of play and the Tigers down six, Ajanaku made his final shot before Tennessee State accepted the loss.

Eastern dominated the first half, jumping out to as much as a 22-3 lead, maintaining a 46-37 advantage at the half.

“In any game, if you get up 22-3, you’re going to deflate a little bit and the other team is going to come back,” Reynolds said. “We knew they were going to make a run, but we did get complacent.”

Domercant and Reynolds led the Panthers with 24 points each. Domercant also added nine rebounds and seven assists while Reynolds went 4-for-7 from the three-point arc. “They’re hard to prepare for and hard to play because a guy like Ajanaku comes into the game not taking shots and becomes their primary offense in the first half,” head coach Rick Samuels said. “You come into the game not knowing who they’re going to start or who they’re going to play. It’s a fire drill for 40 minutes.”

Eastern will face OVC leader Tennessee Tech in the Panthers’ final game of the regular season Saturday at 7 p.m. in Lantz Arena.

“We determine our destiny on Saturday in terms of home or away,” Samuels said. “Saturday becomes the first-round game to the tournament.”