ST. LOUIS, Mo. – The No. 18 Washington University in St. Louis men's basketball team's late-game comeback was not enough as the Bears fell to Brandeis 85-81 on Sunday afternoon. The Bears are now 11-5 on the year with a 1-4 mark in UAA play.
 
Junior Ryan Cohen scored 16 points to lead the Bears while first-year Josh Kim scored a career-high 14 points and dished out a career-high seven assists. First-year Theo Rocca scored 13 points while senior Yogi Oliff had 11 points with six rebounds. Sophomore Connor May scored 10 points and pulled down eight boards.
 
Senior Calvin Kapral netted the first basket for the Bears on an offensive putback. Following a Brandeis bucket to tie things up, the Bears scored five-straight on a 3-pointer from Cohen and a turnaround jumper from Kapral for a 7-2 lead at 17:14.
 
Four-straight points from the Judges' Elias Rodl made it a one-point, 7-6, game and they ultimately tied it at 8-8 on an Alex Zakheim layup at 15:08.
 
Kim drove in a layup and May drilled a shot from distance for a 13-8 Bears' edge at 13:47. Brandeis quickly tied things up in less than a minute on five points from DJ Courtney, making it a 13-13 game.
 
Senior Will Grudzinski put in a layup but the Judges' again tied the game at 15. May put in a layup and Rocca had a bucket to extend WashU's lead to four points, 19-15 at 11:04 on the clock.
 
Brandeis cut it to one point with a 3-pointer from Enrique Perez and took a 20-19 edge on a Landon Sullivan layup.
 
Rocca drained another 3-pointer at 9:55 to take the lead back for WashU, but less than 30 seconds later, Sullivan hit a shot from distance to put the Judges ahead by one point. A Kim layup exchanged the lead one more time at 9:15 before the Judges took the lead back for the remainder of the first half.
 
Brandeis scored seven-straight for a 30-24 lead at 7:22 before Cohen drained a 3-pointer. Another shot from behind the arc at 5:23 from Cohen made it two-point, 32-30 game.
 
The Judges continued to hold a small lead with the Bears cutting it to two points multiple times. A layup from Cohen with 39 seconds left cut it to 40-38 but Brandeis' Zakheim hit a 3-pointer with six seconds remaining to send the Bears into the break trailing 43-38.
 
The Bears stayed close in the opening minutes of the second half but a layup and a 3-pointer from the Judges put Brandeis up 55-43 with 16:33 on the clock.
 
With Brandeis up 10 points at the 14:46 mark, the Judges scored seven-straight to make it a 17-point, 67-50 game. The Judges maintained a near-20 point lead until 6:34 when the Bears started a 14-0 run to come within four points.
 
Junior Jake Davis hit a pair of free throws and Oliff put in a layup. Cohen drilled a 3-pointer followed by two free throws from Kim. Oliff hit a jumper and then stole the ball, dishing it to Kim for a layup. Kim was foul and converted the free throw to make it a 78-74 game with 3:34 remaining.
 
Brandeis went up by eight, 83-75 but the Bears brought it down to two points following two free throws from Rocca, a layup from May and a pair of free throws from Oliff. With 39 seconds left, the Bears trailed 83-81.
 
WashU was forced to foul as the clock ticked down and Brandeis closed out the game with two free throws with three seconds remaining.
 
The Bears were 20-for-60 (48.3%) and 7-for-29 (26.9%) from 3-point range. WashU edged Brandeis 32-28 on the boards.
 
WashU will look to bounce back at home next weekend as the host No. 3 Emory on Friday evening at 5:30 p.m., which will be the HardyStrong Game as well as Alumni Day. On Sunday, WashU welcomes Rochester on Sunday at 2 p.m.
 
 
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