The Ferris State University men’s bas­ket­ball team played two very dif­fer­ent sec­ond halves against Saginaw Valley State University and Lake Superior State University. The dif­fer­ent halves resulted in dif­fer­ent out­comes: one win and one loss.

FSU allowed SVSU to uti­lize a big sec­ond half as the Cardinals defeated the vis­it­ing Bulldogs 79–59 Saturday.

“We just came out flat,” FSU senior guard Dontae Molden said. “Watching the tape, we didn’t have enough energy from the start. I can hon­estly say we got outplayed.”

SVSU held a slim 26–23 half­time advan­tage but recorded 53 points in the sec­ond half on 14-of-17 shoot­ing to hand FSU its sec­ond league loss of the sea­son. The Bulldogs were lim­ited to 36.4 per­cent shoot­ing for the game and made just one three-pointer in the sec­ond half despite 12 attempts.

“We need our defense to play well in order to cre­ate our offense,” Molden said. “Our defense was stag­nant, and it hurt us.”

Junior guard Kenny Brown, who was the only Bulldog player to reach double-digit scor­ing, led FSU with a game-high 23 points. Senior for­ward Jerrell Sanders total seven points and six rebounds for the Bulldogs before he fouled out after 25 min­utes of action. Freshman guard Drew Lehman tal­lied eight points for FSU, and junior for­ward Daniel Sutherlin added a game-high eight rebounds.

With the set­back, the Bulldogs fell to 8–6 over­all and 5–2 in con­fer­ence play. The Cardinals improved to 5–7 over­all and 2–4 in GLIAC action.

“We need to stick to our game plan and do the lit­tle things. We need to show more energy for the full 40 min­utes,” Molden said. “We’re get­ting away from that, and it’s hurt­ing us on the offen­sive and defen­sive side.”

Saturday’s loss at SVSU fol­lowed a come­back win Thursday over Lake Superior State University. FSU ral­lied in the sec­ond half to defeat the host Lakers 64–58 despite trail­ing by as many as 14 points in the first half. The Bulldogs outscored LSSU 39–27 in the final half after being down 31–25 at the break.

“It was two evenly-matched teams,” Molden said. “We played hard, and they played hard.”

Brown led FSU with 21 points. Sanders added 16 points and three blocked shots while Sutherlin con­tributed 13 points and 12 rebounds in a double-double effort. Molden had seven assists and two steals for the Bulldogs.

FSU will return to action Saturday as the Bulldogs are set to host Northwood University with tipoff sched­uled for 3 p.m. The Timberwolves are cur­rently 7–5 over­all and 3–3 in con­fer­ence play. They recently defeated Grace Bible College 73–63 in a non-league con­test and are sched­uled to play Grand Valley State University Jan. 11. Senior for­ward Bobby Lewis leads NU’s scor­ing attack with his 16.3 points per game average.

“We’re going to have to play aggres­sive,” Molden said. “We’re going to have to play him [Lewis] tight when he does and doesn’t have the ball. Jerrell [Sanders] had a good game [guard­ing Lewis] last time, so he’ll prob­a­bly matchup with him again.”

The Bulldogs faced off against the Timberwolves Dec. 10 with FSU com­ing away with a nar­row 69–64 vic­tory. Brown led the Bulldogs with a game-high 29 points as FSU ral­lied from a 21-point sec­ond half deficit to defeat NU on the road. Lewis scored 17 points for the Timberwolves.