GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – Despite a career day by Gregory Boyle, the Purdue Northwest men's basketball team incurred an 89-75 setback to Davenport on Saturday afternoon at the Davenport Student Center.
 
Boyle accumulated a career-high 21 points before fouling out with 8:36 remaining to pace the team in scoring. The host Panthers bounced back to win the second game of the weekend series after the Pride (3-3) garnered their first ever win over Davenport on Friday. Even with Saturday's defeat, head coach Boomer Roberts' squad is off to its best six-game start to league play since joining the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC).

HEAD COACH BOOMER ROBERTS
"We'll learn a lot from this game as we move forward. Second days of back-to-backs are about toughness, and the tougher team won today. We were in foul trouble from the jump, and struggled to get any sort of flow. Obviously losing a couple key guys hurt us, but Injuries are an unfortunate part of our game and it has to be a next man up mentality. Huge week coming up for us."
 
GAME SUMMARY
After Davenport scored the game's first five points, Purdue Northwest knocked down back-to-back triples to grab an early 6-5 lead. The second of those treys featured Mikell Cooper falling to the ground while swishing from long range on a Boyle assist.
 
The two teams went back-and-forth in the early going, but after an 11-9 Purdue Northwest lead, a five-point burst put the Panthers ahead. A Boyle layup with 10:11 remaining in the opening half cut the lead to one at 16-15, but then Davenport rattled off nine of the game's next 11 points to open up a 25-17 edge. Anthony Irvin accounted for the Pride basket during that stretch, finishing a layup on a second-chance opportunity following an offensive rebound.
 
The Panthers (1-5) continued to add on, building up their first 10-point lead of the day before Anthony Barnard swiped a steal and finished a fastbreak layup to slice the deficit to eight with 4:42 left in the half. Davenport built the first-half cushion to as many as 12 at 37-25 with 1:59 remaining.
 
The Pride battled back to within six when Boyle and Irvin buried triples on consecutive possessions, but the Panthers scored six of the final eight points prior to halftime, including a 3-pointer in the final seconds, to up the cushion back to 10 at 43-33 through 20 minutes.
 
Davenport started the second half with eight unanswered points to grow the lead to 18 at 51-33 with 18:14 to play. Purdue Northwest was hampered by foul trouble early in the second half, as Boyle was tagged with three fouls in the first three minutes of the half to pick up his fourth of the game, and less than a minute later Vincent Miszkiewicz received his fourth.
 
Xavier Allison heated up from long range early in the second half, doubling his season total for made 3s with a pair of triples. The second of those was a bank shot that cut the lead to nine at 55-46 with 14:01 to go, but the Panthers led by 10 or more the rest of the way.
 
INDIVIDUAL LEADERS
Boyle reached double figures for the third consecutive game, scoring 14 of his 21 points prior to halftime. After not cracking the 10-point precipice in any of his first three outings this season, the junior has heated up to the tune of 15 points or more in each of his last three contests.
 
Trips to Grand Rapids have proved favorable for Boyle, who surpassed his previous career high of 19, which also came at Davenport (Dec. 5, 2019). Boyle accounted for Purdue Northwest's fourth 20-point output of the season on Saturday, joining Jyrus Freels (twice) and Anthony Barnard as Pride players who have reached the 20-point mark this year.
 
Boyle stuffed the stat sheet with six rebounds, three assists and two steals. The six boards matched a career watermark and allowed the Chicago native to lead the team in that area for the first time this season.
 
Miszkiewicz scored all 14 of his points in the second half after being held scoreless through 20 minutes. He reached double figures for the third time this season and first since scoring 15 points on Jan. 10 at Michigan Tech.
 
Freshman Logan Phillips also hit double figures with a season-high 10 points, matching his season point total from the first five games in one contest on Saturday.
 
The Panthers were led in scoring by Chris Rollins, who boasted a game-high 23 points on 8-of-11 shooting.
 
KEY TEAM STATS
Davenport shot at a 54.7 percent clip for the game, the highest field goal percentage by a Purdue Northwest opponent this season.
 
The Panthers also made 23 free throws (23-of-27, 85.2 percent), the most points scored at the charity stripe against the Pride this year.
 
Purdue Northwest did force 19 turnovers, its second highest total of the year, and won the turnover battle 19-15.
 
NEXT UP
The Pride will return home on Tuesday night to host Parkside at 7 p.m. CT in a rare midweek contest. The game will be broadcast on JED TV from the PNW Fitness Center on the Hammond campus with links to live video and stats available on PNWAthletics.com.