A cold shooting first half and turnovers plagued the Lincoln University men's basketball team Saturday afternoon as they dropped their first conference game of the season losing to Winston-Salem State University 64-56 at the Gaines Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

The Lions fall to 6-5 overall and 1-1 in Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA) games.  Winston-Salem improves to  3-8 overall and 1-1 in league play
Cameron Campbell (Fayetteville, N.C./Trinity Christian ) led the Lions with 13 points while Sean James (Newark, Del./Christiana (Iona)) added ten points to lead the Lions.   Jordan Camper (Chester, Pa./Chester) chipped in nine points while pulling down a team-high eight rebounds.

William Crandall led the Rams with 18 points and 11 rebounds.

The Lions shot just 18.2% in the first half, making just six field goals the entire period (no three pointers) and found themselves trailing by ten at the break 25-15.  Lincoln also committed an uncharacteristically high 11 turnovers in the half.

It looked to be more of the same in the second half as the Lions turned the ball over in four of their first six possessions in the second half and fell further behind 32-17 just three minutes into the half.   The Lions offense then started to come alive scoring eight straight points to cut the lead to seven at 32-25.  WSSU quickly pushed the lead back up to ten at 37-27 before the Lions roared back with an 11-3 uprising to close within two at 40-38 with 9:02 remaining.  Five of the 11 points came from the free throw line.

The Rams lead oscillated between two and six points over the next 3:32 with Elijah Bush (Bay Shore, N.Y./Bay Shore (Essex County CC))'s layup at the 5:38 mark again cutting the Rams lead to two points at 47-45.  The Rams then took advantage of missed opportunities by the Lions and opened the lead back up to 11 with an 11-2 flourish over the next 2:39 as the Lions shot 1-6 from the field over the course of the WSSU run. Lincoln would get no closer than eight points the rest of the way as they turned the ball over three times in the final three minutes with Campbell scoring seven of his team-high 13 points during the final stretch of the game.

Lincoln's second half shooting was much like their 40-minute effort against Johnson C. Smith two days earlier, making 15 of 28 shots from the field for a 53.6% mark.  Overall both teams made 21 total field goals with the Rams making 41.2% of their shots to LU's 34.4%.  WSSU had three more three-point field goals than the Lions (5-2) and shot 17-27 from the free throw line (63%) to LU's 12-14 (85.7%) The Lions committed a season –high 21 turnovers and a season-low five assists on the afternoon.

The Lions return to action on Monday, December 18, 2017 when they play the final game of their three-game CIAA southern swing at Livingstone College.  Tipoff is set for 7:30 p.m.