Winners of their last two games, the Bears were aiming for the hat trick Monday night at Northeast Mississippi. And even though they fought back to take the lead in the second half, they ran out of gas in the end, falling 66-63 to the Tigers.
 
"We really struggled to take care of the ball in the first half (as) we had nine turnovers," Southwest head coach Corey Schmidt said. "That is just entirely way too many. I thought that we were playing pretty good defense, but we just couldn't get the offense rolling."
 
The struggle with turnovers hurt the Bears (12-10, 3-4 MACCC) right out of the gate as four early giveaways helped the Tigers build a six-point lead. Despite being down, Southwest prevented Northeast from building a sizable advantage. The largest deficit of the first half for the Bears was 12 and it came with 1:48 to go, but the visitors rallied, thanks to a layups each from Tylik Weeks and Mark Drone to pull within eight at 33-25 at the intermission.
 
In the first two minutes of the second half, the Bears continued to trail but did not let the Tigers build a double-digit lead.
 
With 18:00 to go, Southwest went on a run. A 16-4 rally which concluded with a 3-pointer from Blake Hart, gave the Bears a four-point lead at 44-40.
 
Over the next several minutes of play both teams traded blows, as each grabbed the upper hand. However, not long afterward, the Bears went on another run. With key contributions from Drone, Southwest pushed its lead out to six at 59-53 with just under 6:00 to go.
 
The Tigers inched closer before jumping back ahead with just over 1:00 to play. The Bears pulled closer but could not get over the hump in the end.
 
Southwest had two players finish in double figures as Drone posted 18 points while Weeks tallied 17. The latter recorded a double-double as he added 14 rebounds. Fellow post player Jahshawne Joseph also had a huge night on the boards with 13 of his own.
 
The Bears will be back on the court on Thursday playing host to Pearl River at 7:30 p.m.