WICHITA FALLS, TEXAS – No. 11 seed UT Tyler's upset bid over no. 6 seed Midwestern State came up just short on Tuesday night in the first round of the 2022 Lone Star Conference Men's Basketball Championships as the Patriots fell by a 66-62 margin.
 
UT Tyler led 37-30 at the halftime break and had 23 points from senior Micah Fuller in their first-ever appearance in the tournament, but couldn't find a way to finish off the upset in the waning minutes in Wichita Falls, Texas. Fuller went 8-for-13 from the field to move into third all-time on the career scoring list for the Patriots with his 929^th career point in a UT Tyler uniform.
 
Midwestern State will advance to Thursday's quarterfinal round inside the Comerica Center in Frisco, Texas, where they will meet no. 3 seed Dallas Baptist at 12 p.m.
 
UT Tyler came out with the authority in their inaugural postseason appearance as a Division II member and led 25-8 just over 10 minutes into the contest. Midwestern State began to chip away at that fast start for UT Tyler in the final minutes of the opening half, and narrowed the deficit to just seven after the first 20 minutes of play.
 
That trend continued coming out of the halftime break as Midwestern State tied the game less than five minutes into the second half at 42-42 with 15:37 remaining on the clock. The Mustangs continued to fire offensively, and eventually pulled ahead by eight at the 55-47 mark with 8:21 left in the ballgame.
 
UT Tyler responded with an 11-3 run to tie the game up for the first time since that 15:37 mark, and eventually took the lead at 60-59 with a pair of made free throws by Fuller. That one-point advantage with 2:13 left was extended to three after a defensive stop on the ensuing Mustang possession and Fuller's seventh straight point with a jumper with 1:29 left.
 
Midwestern State swung the momentum back into their favor with a game-tying three-point make with 1:15 remaining on the clock by Luke Hamilton, and then proceeded to cap off their 7-0 run to close out the first round victory from that point forward.
 
UT Tyler finishes the season 16-10 in their first year of full-fledged Division II status, and secured the program's first-ever national ranking at the Division II level, the best start to a season in program history and the first two regional rankings for the program in the process.
 
Senior Eysan Wiley returned to the court for the Patriots for the first time since Jan. 18^th on Tuesday and joined Fuller in double-digit scoring figures with 10 points on the night. Both teams shot around 47 percent from the field, as the Patriots went 25-for-53 (47.2 percent) and the Mustangs 24-for-51 (47.1 percent).
 
Freshman Kyle Frelow led the Patriots with seven rebounds on the night, while Fuller added six boards and Soloman Thomas and Milan Szabo five boards each. The Patriots won the rebounding battle 32-to-25.