Decatur, Ill. - A four minute scoreless stretch in the second half provided costly as the Thunder men's basketball team couldn't hold off the Millikin Big Blue on Wednesday night. Millikin used an 11-0 to take a late lead and held off the visiting Thunder for a 59-55 victory. With the victory, Millikin wins its third straight game to improve to 9-14 overall and 3-9 in the CCIW. Wheaton falls to 5-18 overall and 1-11 in conference action with its sixth consecutive loss.

Wheaton shot 41.5% (17-41) from the field despite struggling to shot only 28.6% (4-14) from beyond the arc. Wheaton was an effective 85% (17-20) at the foul line. Millikin put up similar shooting numbers, connecting at 47.1% (24-51) from the field but just 25% (4-16) from the three-point line. The Big Blue were just 7-of-12 (58.3%) at the charity stripe. Wheaton outrebounded the hosts 29-26 but committed 16 turnovers to just 11 Millikin miscues.

The first half featured a back and forth affair with neither able to gain any separation from the other. The Big Blue opened up its largest lead of the first half at 18-14 with 7:26 remaining but Wheaton scored the next five points to retake the lead. Millikin scored the last basket of the half to take a 22-21 lead into halftime.

Millikin scored to open the second half before the Thunder answered with eight straight points to take a 29-24 lead on Joel Smith's lay-up with 16:10 to play. Ricky Samuelson's three-pointer would give the Thunder the biggest lead of the night at nine points and Wheaton would continue to lead by seven at 41-34 with 11:44 to play before Millikin began to chip away at the lead.

Five straight Big Blue points cut the lead down to two points but a three by Riley Teuscher stemmed the tide and pushed the lead back to five. Michael Berg's free throws with 7:15 to play gave Wheaton a 48-44 advantage but it would the last points Wheaton would score until Samuelson connected on another three-pointer with 3:44 remaining. In that time, the Big Blue ran off 11 straight points to take a 55-48 lead. wheaton would cut the lead back to two points on a pair of occasions and had a shot for the win with six seconds remaining but could not connect and two late Millikin free throws provided the final 59-55 tally.

Samuelson led the Thunder a game-high 13 points. Michael Berg and Joel Smiith each tallied nine points and three rebounds. Christian Simpson tallied career-highs with a game-high eight rebounds and eight points. TJ Griffin led the Big Blue with 12 points and Bryn Agnew added 11 points.

Wheaton will next be in action on Saturday night when the Thunder travel to Kenosha, Wisconsin, for a 7 PM tipoff at Tarble Arena against the Carthage Red Men.