CEDAR CITY, Utah -- The Thunderbird men's basketball team saw what will go down as an historic season come to a close on Monday evening inside the America First Event Center, as Southern Utah fell to CSU Bakersfield 70-67.

SUU will end the season 17-17, finishing .500 for the first time since the 2006-07 campaign when they finished with a winning mark. They also made only their second postseason appearance in Division I history and won their first postseason contest in school history.   

The Thunderbirds had a shot at the hoop as time expired, but weren't about to convert in the closing seconds.

"Obviously the last one is always tough, especially once you get into postseason play," SUU head coach Todd Simon said. "I thought our guys fought and battled, and that's a good team that's found their way in the postseason. … We just didn't make enough baskets. We've been a great free throw shooting team for most of this year and we missed 15 free throws, and we had so many in-and-out threes, at the end of the day we just need to make more baskets."

Neither team started particularly hot, but the T-Birds held the lead for the opening eight minutes until the Roadrunners tied it up at 9-9. After the T-Birds pushed it to 10-9, CSUB hit a triple and held the lead for the remainder of the opening half. The visitors from Bakersfield, California led 25-23 after Brandon Better hit a triple to cut into their advantage as time expired on the first 20 minutes.

Even though their lead never got higher than eight, the Roadrunners controlled the contest through the second half and never relinquished the advantaged. However, the Thunderbirds never stopped fighting and cut the Roadrunner lead to three with just seconds remaining. Right before time expired Dre Marin put up a triple that didn't quite draw iron, and the T-Birds saw their 2018-19 campaign come to a close.

In what turned out to be his final contest as a T-Bird, Better finished with 20 points in 23 minutes of action.

"I didn't know it was going to be my last game, and there's a lot of emotions going into it," Better said following the contest. "It's kind of sad, but I'm happy I'm doing it with these guys. So I'm just happy that I'm here with these guys and that we had the season we did."

Cameron Oluyitan dropped in 13 points to wrap up his junior season, and Dre Marin had 11 as he saw his sophomore year come to a close.

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