SLIPPERY ROCK — Kevin Reynolds spent much of the night with his shoulders shrugged and his face perplexed.

That's because the Slippery Rock University men's basketball coach was enduring a very uncharacteristic night.

The Rock shot poorly, were out-rebounded and didn't play well at Morrow Field House, a place where SRU had won all four games this season and 16 of the last 18.

Worse yet, as Reynolds said, his team was “bullied” in a 68-61 loss to Gannon University Wednesday night.

The defeat snapped a six-game winning streak for The Rock.

“There's a lot of frustration on my part because they bullied us,” Reynolds said. “They bullied us. They bullied us at a lot of positions and they just did a better job of coaching.”

Gannon (3-2 overall, 2-1 in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference-West) held a 28-14 advantage on the boards at one point and finished the game with 40 rebounds to 30 for The Rock.

Slippery Rock (6-2, 2-2) came into the game with a per-game rebounding advantage of plus-14.

“They were better than us. Way better,” Reynolds said. “Poor job. It's as simple as that. They killed us on the glass.”

The Rock, though, opened up an early 11-2 lead.

The Golden Knights, however, chipped away at that advantage and eventually knotted the score at 30-30 by halftime.

Gannon led by as many as 18 midway through the second half before SRU began to pull itself back into the game.

The effort turned out to be a little too late.

The Rock did trim the lead to 65-61 after a free throw from Josh Martin with 36 seconds remaining, but the Golden Knights were able to nurse the lead and escape with a win.

Reynolds was not happy with the shot selection down the stretch. SRU launched up a series of 3-pointers that were way off the mark in the final 36 seconds.

“Bad shots at the end,” Reynolds said. “We shot ill-advised 3s. That's what hurt us.”

Matej Delinac led SRU with 18 points off the bench. Kelvin Dixon and Maurice Lewis-Briggs each added 10 for The Rock.

Reynolds put the loss all on himself.

“Gannon was a better coached team tonight,” Reynolds said. “They played significantly better than us. Ultimately, that's my responsibility. It's bad coaching and nobody is more disappointing than myself. There's no blame to put on the guys. I need to do a better job coaching the team. At the end of the day, there's no other way to say it.”

SRU will try to get back on track Saturday afternoon when it plays at Pitt-Johnston.

“We have to change our focus,” Reynolds said. “We tried to play a more finesse, stylish game with 21 3-point attempts and not rebounding. That's not what we do. We're going to lose a lot of games if we play in that manner. We're a defensive team that rebounds, that shares the ball. We didn't do any of those three things tonight.”

GANNON 68

C.J. Oldham 1-2 3-6 5, A'Darius Porter 3-6 0-0 6, Jabs Newby 2-8 2-2 6, Tee Talley 4-13 0-0 8, Adam Blazek 8-12 7-8 26, R. Thomas-Edwards 0-8 0-0 0, Brandon Emmitt 0-0 0-0 0, Matthew Dogan 0-2 0-0 0, Rogerio Livramento 6-6 5-6 17. Totals: 24-57 17-22 68.

SRU 61

Maurice Lewis-Briggs 4-10 2-2 10, Tabari Perry 3-9 2-4 9, Kelvin Dixon 2-9 6-6 10, Josh Martin 1-7 3-4 5, Sa'Quan Davis 0-2 0-0 0, Jordan Grady 0-0 0-0 0, Matej Delinac 5-6 5-6 18, Antonio Butler 1-5 1-3 3, Erik Raleigh 1-1 4-4 6. Totals: 17-49 23-29 61.

Halftime score: Tied 30-30

3-point goals: Gannon 3-13 (Newby 0-1, Talley 0-4, Blazek 3-6, Dogan 0-2). SRU 4-21 (Lewis-Briggs 0-2, Perry 1-4, Dixon 0-5, Martin 0-4, Davis 0-1, Delinac 3-3, Butler 0-2)