Despite getting off to a strong start and putting their offense on display, the Bears couldn't quite close the deal in the end, falling to Tallahassee State 98-96 in Friday's season opener.

"They banked in a shot at the buzzer and beat us," Southwest head coach Corey Schmidt said. "Offensively I thought that we played really well and did a lot of good things, but defensively they were able to do a couple of things that we said we wanted to take away. They got a lot of offensive rebounds and second-chance points that hurt us."

The Bears (0-1) got off to a strong start in the first half getting a good combination of inside scoring from Tylik Weeks and LeVionne Lindsey coupled with stellar outside shooting from Fazl Oshodi and Jaylen Haliburton. Lindsey and Weeks connected on one and two 3-pointers, respectively, but did most of their damage from inside the arc. Both Haliburton and Oshodi nailed three 3-pointers apiece.

Southwest led 50-42 at the half.

The Bears maintained their lead as the clock began to tick away in the second half. The turning point of the game came towards the latter half of the second period. Not long after the defensive presence of Ahmadou Ndiaye left after fouling out, Southwest watched its lead dwindle until the Eagles connected on a shot as time expired to hand the Bears the narrow loss.

Weeks led the Bears with 32 points while Oshodi and Haliburton each finished with 15.

Southwest has a very quick turnaround as it faces host Chipola Saturday at 3 p.m.