The wrong team didn’t miss shots down the stretch.

The Eastern men’s basketball team handed Samford its first Ohio Valley Conference loss, defeating the conference’s top shooting team 74-65 Thursday night in Lantz Arena.

Eastern (7-11, 2-5 OVC) connected on 11 three-pointers, seven in the second half.

The Panthers hit 13-of-20 second half-shots for a 65 percent field goal percentage. The team hit 53.3 percent from the field overall.

The Bulldogs’ (12-6, 6-1) match-up zone defense gave Eastern open looks from outside- looks Eastern hasn’t had against teams who play pressure man-to-man defense, Eastern head coach Rick Samuels said.

“I was confident we’d shoot the ball well,” he said. “The zone they play is a little bit softer, and we were able to get our shooters some good looks.”

And the Panthers’ starting guards, junior Josh Gomes and senior Emanuel Dildy, took advantage of the zone. Gomes led the Panthers with 21 points on 7-of-12 shooting, and Dildy added 19 points, making 6-of-9 overall and 5-of-7 from three-point range.

Senior forward Andy Gobczynski finished with 11 points as the only other Panther above double figures.

“We got some high-percentage shots,” said senior guard Jason Wright. “A lot of our shots came within the flow of the game and weren’t forced.”

After the teams swapped leads for the first six minutes of the second half, the Panthers took a 41-40 lead on the second two of Gomes’ free throws. Eastern never relinquished the advantage.

“We re finishing games at home,” Samuels said. “We’re making big plays down the stretch.”

The Bulldogs got a huge second half from junior forward J. Robert Merritt, the OVC’s fifth-leading scorer. Merritt led all scorers with 22 points, including 17 in the second half.

Samford’s offense slowed down the game’s tempo by patiently waiting for open three-pointers or backdoor cuts.

“I thought we did a pretty good job against it,” Gobczynski said. “We’ve been practicing it all week, and we were ready.”

After forcing Eastern into 10 turnovers and shooting 50 percent from the floor, Samford led by two at the break, 28-26.

The Panthers started the game on an 8-2 run, getting a pair of three-pointers from Dildy and Gomes. Gomes led the Panthers with 10 points in the half.

But the Bulldogs’ senior forward Bryan Boerjan responded scoring five straight to make the score 8-7. Boerjan finished the half with seven points to lead Samford.

Eastern answered with another 8-2 run triggered by freshman guard Bobby Catchings’ thunderous one-handed dunk.

With the score 16-9, Samford began to heat up from beyond the three-point arc hitting three-straight to take their first lead at 18-16.

The Bulldogs took another lead late in the half, going up 28-24 on J. Robert Merritt’s driving lay-in. But a Catchings’ steal set up Dildy to go the length of the floor in five seconds, hitting a slashing left-handed lay-up to beat the buzzer.

“(Dildy) just made a great play,” Wright said. “It gave us a lot of momentum that carried over.”

The Panthers return to the Lantz Arena floor at 7 p.m. Saturday when they take on the Jacksonville to close out Eastern’s two-week, four-game homestand.