WEST LIBERTY, W.Va. — The start was good. The end, not so much.

A day after upsetting second-seeded Gannon in the first round of the NCAA Division II Tournament, Slippery Rock University’s men’s basketball season came to an end Sunday night with a 73-65 loss to rival Indiana (Pa.).

Both games were played at the Academic Sports and Recreation Complex at West Liberty University.

“We played well in both games,” SRU coach Kevin Reynolds said. “Last night, the ball bounced our way. Tonight, it didn’t.”

The Rock (21-11) had a 28-18 lead on third-seeded IUP (28-6) with 6:53 left in the first half, only to see the Crimson Hawks whittle the margin to 36-33 by halftime.

A Chaquille Pratt jumper gave SRU its last lead at 49-48 with 8:16 left in the game. IUP went on a 12-2 run at that point to build a 60-51 edge with 4:06 to play. The Rock got no closer than five the rest of the way.

Malcolm Richardson paced SRU with 22 points, seven rebounds and four assists. Frank Holloway added 12 points, Antonio Butler 10. Pratt had nine points and seven boards.

The Rock had a 34-24 advantage in rebounding and sank 25 field goals to IUP’s 22. But the Crimson Hawks shot 52 percent from the floor and hit 26 of 29 free throws.

SRU sank nine of 15 free throws.

“Our goals in this game were to win the rebounding battle, don’t allow them to shoot 3’s and don’t let them get to the foul line,” Reynolds said. “We were down by three possessions (seven points) with four minutes to play.

“That’s a tough mountain to climb against a team that can sink free throws like they can. We were aggressive tonight. We missed 33 shots and grabbed 17 offensive rebounds. That’s one out of every two. That’s pretty darn good.”

IUP denied The Rock its first-ever bid to the Division II “Sweet 16” for the second time in three years. The Crimson Hawks defeated SRU 53-50 in the national tourney in 2013.

The teams split during the regular season this year, both winning at home. IUP is now 99-79 all-time against The Rock.

“In the summertime, we’ll be happy about the season we had,” Reynolds said. “Right now, it’s disappointing because we felt we played well enough to get to Tuesday night.”

SRU opened the tournament Saturday by upsetting PSAC champion Gannon (23-9), 65-57. The Golden Knights had handed SRU a 71-45 loss only 11 days earlier and had defeated The Rock three times this season.

Gannon took an eight-game winning streak into Saturday’s game.

“We were embarrassed up at Gannon in our last game,” Reynolds said in his postgame press conference. “We are a prideful team and we really had a lot to prove to ourselves today after that performance.

“We were 0-for-3 against them this year and 0-for-6 the last two years, but our guys believed in the plan and came out and executed it to perfection today.”

Four players reached double figures for The Rock. Holloway scored 17 points and grabbed six rebounds in 28 minutes. Jamal Gatali had a career-high 12 points on four 3-pointers.

Butler scored 10 points and reached double figures in 24 straight games to end the season. Desma Nicholson scored 10 points as well.

Adam Blazek paced Gannon with 13 points. Jean Yves Toupane added 10.

SRU played in its third Division II national tournament in the past five years under Reynolds.

“We won 20 games four of the past five years and went to postseason four times,” Reynolds said. “Not many teams in Division II can say they’ve done that. We’re a national program now.”