Box Score DALLAS (Feb. 15, 2018) – If there's one thing Oklahoma Christian men's basketball coach Cory Cole cannot stand, it's having his team get out-toughed, and he was certain that's what he saw happen in the second half on Thursday night at Dallas Baptist (Texas).

OC led by as many as nine points in the first half and was ahead briefly early in the second half, but Dallas Baptist rolled after that while posting an 89-68 win at the Burg Center. It was a revenge win for the Patriots, who lost at OC on Jan. 18 when they were nationally ranked.

Dallas Baptist (19-5, 8-4 Heartland Conference) since has fallen out of the national polls, but the Patriots still are in line for a potential at-large berth to the NCAA Division II tournament and they played like it against OC (9-14, 5-7).

Fortunately for OC, two of the teams below them in the Heartland standings – St. Mary's (Texas) and Texas A&M International – also lost, keeping the Eagles two games ahead of both. But the loss dropped OC into a sixth-place tie with St. Edward's (Texas), and St. Edward's swept the Eagles this season, which means the Hilltoppers own the tiebreaker.

The top eight teams qualify for the Heartland postseason tournament. The Eagles still have work to do to secure their spot in Tulsa during the first weekend in March, starting with their final home game of the season Saturday against Lubbock Christian (Texas).

"We didn't come out of the locker room (at halftime)," Cole said. "Our Achilles heel has been our inconsistency. This team is like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. When we need big moments, I don't know if we're there or not. We really struggle on the road to be consistent for 40 minutes, for 30 minutes, for 20 minutes.

"At some point, it's got to be about pride in the locker room. That goes back to a winning culture. You've got to have pride and travel with pride and play with pride. We're still fixing that."

The Patriots focused on stopping OC's potent backcourt of Elijah Strickland and Jordan Box and were successful, holding Box to four points and ending his streak of 14 straight double-digit scoring games. Strickland managed 15 hard-earned points, more than three below his average.

OC's inside players compensated some – Roderick Smith scored 16 points while Will Lienhard had 11 to go with three blocked shots – but it wasn't enough, particularly since the Patriots took advantage of OC's sometimes lackadaisical defense to shoot 56.6 percent from the field. Dallas Baptist hit 8 of 13 3-point attempts, with J.T. Harris making 5 of 7 from behind the arc and scoring 23 points to go with eight rebounds.

"We didn't sustain any actions," Cole said. "I thought they physically interrupted everything we tried to do. It just goes back to our lack of toughness."

Dallas Baptist went more than six minutes without a field goal in the first half and OC used a 12-0 run to go ahead 18-9 with 12:34 left in the half. But the Patriots began chipping away and soon led by seven before settling for a 34-33 halftime advantage.

A dunk by Miroslav Jaksic and two free throws by Box put OC up 37-34 with 18:19 left, but Dallas Baptist answered with an 11-2 spurt and never looked back. The Patriots scored 13 straight – a run that included three 3-pointers by Harris – to build their lead to 60-43 with 11:09 left and OC never seriously challenged after that.

Patrick Burke added 16 points for Dallas Baptist, while Chandler Jacobs had 15 and Boy Van Vliet had 13 with seven assists. The Patriots outrebounded OC 32-25.