PORTALES, N.M. – The Eastern New Mexico men's basketball made it interesting down the stretch, but was ultimately unable to take down rival West Texas A&M on Tuesday night inside Greyhound Arena.

Presented by Big Valley Auto, the 74-69 defeat drops the Hounds to 4-5 in conference play moving into a break in Lone Star Conference action, with their next game not coming until Jan. 31 at Cameron. West Texas A&M controlled the majority of the contest, leading for 39:33 seconds of the game, but couldn't pull away in the second half as the Hounds continually fought back moving down the stretch.

Sophomore Devin Pullum continued to score the basketball at a consistent rate, dropping 25 points on 8-of-22 shooting from the field, and added 11 rebounds to the effort to record his first double-double of the season. Pullum made half of the team's eight three-point makes for the game, going 4-of-9 himself while Eastern New Mexico made 8-of-30 from three-point range as a unit.

18 of Pullum's 25 points came in the second half as the Hounds continued to hang around deep into the final minutes of the second half. Trailing 35-26 at the halftime break, Eastern trailed by double digits all the way until just over five minutes remained in the ball game when an Isaiah Murphy jump shot brought the score to 59-51.

The Buffs quickly answered and regained the double digit advantage at the 3:20 mark with the score at 63-53, before Pullum hit a deep three-point basket to bring the disadvantage back down to seven. Following two free throw makes from West Texas A&M, senior Chukuka Emili stepped out to hit a three-pointer to draw the score to 65-59.

Pullum continued to work the defense down the stretch and drove the lane just inside the two-minute mark to answer a made basket from the Buffs and keep the scoring differential at six points. Senior Maurice Coleman came up with a huge offensive rebound following two missed three-point attempts by the Eastern New Mexico offense with just over a minute remaining on the clock and drew the foul on a three-point shot to earn three shots from the charity stripe.

Coleman made two-of-three attempts to set the score at 67-63, but the Buffs made their next two free throw attempts following an Emili foul to effectively end the Eastern chance at the comeback.

West Texas A&M standout Ryan Quaid proved to be the difference maker for the Buffs on a night in which both teams struggled to get the ball inside against each other's respective defenses. Quaid totaled 30 points on just 22 shot attempts while the Hounds limited the league's best three-point shooting team to just 7-for-27 from beyond the three-point arc.

The Hounds had their fair share of second-chance opportunities throughout the game, grabbing 19 offensive rebounds, including seven from senior Arcaim Lallemand who finished with 11 total rebounds to match Pullum for a team high, but couldn't seem to piece together a substantial run in the second half to chip away at the Buff's lead.

Senior Zach Parker kept the Hounds in the contest early with 11 first-half points, but couldn't find the scoring column in the second half. Emili served as the other Hound to reach double-digit scoring figures with 16 points on 7-of-11 shooting from the field.

The Hounds have now officially finished up the first half of Lone Star Conference play and will now turn around and face each opponent again as the look to qualify for their second straight Lone Star Conference Postseason Tournament.