After making the flight from Atlanta to upstate New York, the Bears showed up ready to play on Sunday, Feb. 11. From the opening tipoff to the final whistle, the Bears put on a clinic, riding a 15-0 start, a rebounding performance for the history books, and lockdown defense to a 75-61 victory.
The Bears have become used to comebacks in their tight UAA season, but as the clock wound down, they were unable to pull out a win this time. Carnegie Mellon held on for a 79–73 victory. Two days later, on Feb. 4, the Bears’ struggles were compounded by a 74–59 loss to No. 10 Case Western Reserve University.
Sunday’s win against a UAA-leading Case Western squad, along with a win Friday night against the gritty Carnegie Mellon University Tartans, capped off a season-defining weekend for the Bears.
Coming off an OT thriller against the University of Rochester where the Bears barely escaped with a win, it seemed now that the engine pushing their late-game heroics had run out of fuel as WashU headed East for a two game trip against the New York University Violets and Brandeis University Judges.
As the Bears have learned in their first three UAA matchups the one-point loss at Chicago on Jan. 6, four-point victory over Emory on Jan. 12, and one-point overtime win over Rochester on Jan. 14 every single game in the UAA is likely going to come down to the wire, and eking out wins like their first two certainly will not be an easy task.