Photo Gallery (by Sandy King)

Eastern Illinois men's basketball came up just short on Thursday night in the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament quarterfinals as the Panthers lost, 66-63, to No. 4 seed UT Martin at the Ford Center.

EIU ends the season at 13-20 overall winning an OVC Tournament game for the first time since the 2020 season with last night's win over No. 5 seed SIUE.

In this game Preston Turner came off the bench to provide a scoring lift with four 3-pointers as the junior matched his season high of 18 points.

Terry McMorris had his second straight OVC Tournament double-double finishing with 15 points, 12 rebounds.

Kooper Jacobi and Meechie White both added 12 points for the Panthers as they shot 43.4 percent from the field.

UT Martin led 27-22 at the half extending that lead to as high as nine points with 15:24 left in the game on a Afan Trnka jumper. 

The Panthers battled back and took the lead with just under ten minutes to play on a Turner 3-pointer giving EIU a 42-40 lead.

The teams traded the lead for the next four minutes before the Panthers hit a cold spell shooting from the floor while UT Martin extended the lead to seven with 2:34 remaining on a jumper by Matas
Deniusas.  The OVC Freshman of the Year finished with 17 points for the Skyhawks.

UT Martin closed the game at the line to improve to 22-10 on the year.  Filip Radakovic was 11-of-11 at the free throw line in the game, scoring 17 points.