TACOMA, Wash. - The Pacific Lutheran University men's basketball team outscored crosstown rival University of Puget Sound over the final 28 minutes of play but was unable to overcome an early deficit, ending up on the wrong side of an 83-61 scoreline on Tuesday night inside Olson Gymnasium. 

The Lutes (6-11, 3-6 NWC) outscored the Loggers (8-10, 4-5 NWC) 55-53 over the game's final 28 minutes, including 40-38 in the second half but was unable to shake off a rocky opening 12 minutes that saw Northwest Conference nemesis Puget Sound score 30 of the contest's opening 36 points. PLU battled in the second half, reducing a 27-point deficit to just 14 midway through the second half on a Carlton Brown free throw and again on a Jordan Thomas layup before running out of gas.

"We were terrible out of the gate tonight," said Head Coach Chad Murray. "It was really uncharacteristic of how we've responded to adversity earlier in the year. I thought there were times in the season where we really answered the bell but that wasn't true tonight. I thought we were ready to play and had confidence coming in but we have a tendency to really get down and feel sorry for ourselves when things don't start out the way we want. We need to work our way through that specific issue as soon as possible. We have a big challenge coming up this weekend as Linfield comes to town. We know what happened down there so we really need to rally and stay together and I think we will."

Carlton Brown led the Lutes with 16 points and three assists, hitting seven of his nine shots from the field while Kelton Williams and Leighton Kingma both added 10. 

PLU finished the game shooting 46.9 percent from the field (23-for-49), including an efficient 60.9 percent (14-for-23) in the second half but it wasn't enough as UPS hit 51.7 percent (30-for-58) over the course of the game, including hitting 11 three-pointers. 

The Lutes are back inside Olson Gymnasium on Saturday, hosting Linfield College at 6 p.m.