Thursday night’s 68-63 Saluki loss to Creighton can be best summed up in a simple cheer:third verse, same as the first, a little bit louder and a little bit worse.

The men’s basketball team, now 10-13 overall and 3-9 in the Misouri Valley Conference, dropped its must-win game to the Bluejays, and is now backing itself into a corner trying to fight its way into the MVC Tournament in St. Louis March 2-4.

With only six games remaining in the season, the Dawgs must now battle some of the toughest competition in the conference to grab the eighth seed in the tournament, and battle what would be now league-leading Bradley in the first round.

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The dream of seeing post-season action grew smaller with the loss, and with second place Illinois State slated next on the SIUC schedule, the term must-win has never had a stronger definition.

After battling ISU Feb. 11 in Bloomington-Normal, the Salukis must come out of the corner swinging against fourth-place Tulsa, sixth-place Drake, eighth-place Evansville, and close out the season with a home game against first-place Bradley Feb. 26.

In the game, the Salukis had a plethera of opportunites to pull ahead of the Bluejays, but an abundance of missed shots and clutch-shooting by the Creighton shooters held the Dawgs in check.

The Dawgs offense looked lost at times particuarly with 17:09 left in the first half when the team spent the entire shot-clock passing the ball around the perimeter, and seemed baffled when the shot-clock buzzer sounded.

The Salukis did hustle in the game, though, and that proved to be true in the closing seconds before the intermission when sophomore guard Shane Hawkins threw-up a three-pointer, missed, and sophomore guard Troy Hudson tipped-in the miss for two of his 22 points to beat the buzzer.

SIUC went into the locker room down by eight, 34-26, and would play catch-up to the Bluejays for the remainder of the game coming as close as three point with 1:30 and 16 left in the game, but never getting over the hump.

The Salukis shot a dismal 32 percent in the game from the floor, and senior guard Johnny Dadzie said missed opportunities and shots may have been the most frustratring part of the game.

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It really is (frustrating). We’ve just got to keep stepping it up defensively, Dadzie said. I know it may look like we’re out, but we’ve still got to do something. I feel that if we keep playing hard and go after it, we will get the breaks eventually it will come.

Freshman forward James Watts, who scored seven points with six rebounds, also said the missed opportunites were frustrating, but the team has to move on and play harder.

It seems like every game we play and make a run, they come down and make a three-point play. We’ve gotta keep our hands up, and play better defense, freshman forward James Watts said. I’ve got three more years left, but I want the seniors to go out with a bang, and it’s just not happening right now. Hopefully, in the next five or six games they can go out with a bang.

SIUC coach Rich Herrin said that, although the Salukis won the offensive rebounding catagory 24-16, Creighton made the most of its rebounds, and that was the difference in the game.

I think we let No. 4 have four stick-backs, he said. When your playing zone (defense), its difficult to keep guys from going down the seam, but when your playing man (defense), it’s very easy to keep people from getting in there and that’s where they beat us.