CHICAGO, Ill. -- The Illinois Wesleyan men's basketball team trailed by 18 at halftime and could never mount the sustained comeback, losing by an 82-70 score at North Park in Chicago on Saturday, Jan. 23.

After their third straight loss, the Titans are at .500 for the season at 9-9 overall and are 3-4 in the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin while the Vikings improved to 4-3 in the CCIW and are 12-6 this season.
This is Illinois Wesleyan's first three-game conference losing streak since the final three games of the 2008-09 season with losses to close the season to Wheaton (86-60), Millikin (90-57) and Augustana (74-65).

Junior Trevor Seibring led the Titans with 16 points (14 in the second half) while freshman Colin Bonnett scored a career-high 15 and senior Joel Pennington chipped in 10. Bonnett and senior Ryan Coyle led IWU with six rebounds each as North Park outrebounded IWU, 37-36.

The Titans managed only 38.1 percent from the field (24 of 63) in the game and shot 20.0 percent from 3-point range, making only six of 30. IWU's only lead of the game was 2-0 and they trailed by a 44-26 score at intermission and by as many as 21 points at 55-34 with 17:56 left in the game.

North Park's Juwan Henry led all scorers with 19 points and teammates Jordan Robinson and Colin Lake contributed 14 each. T.J. Cobbs corralled a game-best eight rebounds.

"We clearly weren't ready. North Park was the aggressor early, took fight to us and we didn't respond," IWU head coach Ron Rose told WJBC Radio in a postgame interview. "I think Colin (Bonnett) played his best college game and caused problems defensively for Henry in the second half. On a night when we didn't shoot it well, we just didn't do other things we needed to do."

What's Next?
Illinois Wesleyan plays at Wheaton at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 27. The Thunder is 5-13 overall and 1-6 in the conference after an 85-79 loss at home to Carthage on Saturday ... The Titans handed Wheaton an 82-66 setback on Jan. 6 at the Shirk Center.