PORTALES, N.M. – Eastern New Mexico men's basketball dropped a road game to UT Permian Basin Thursday night, 78-74.

ENMU made the first field goal of the game to take a 2-0 lead, but that is the only lead Eastern would have in a matchup where the Falcons held an advantage as high as 12 points.

"We missed too many free throws," recalled head coach Daven Võ when talking about the matchup postgame.

The first year head coach was referring to a trio of free throws missed on front-end opportunities. Two of those came in the first half and the Hounds missed a crucial one with four minutes remaining in the game.

ENMU were down 66-62 when Jose Murillo had earned a trip to the free throw line for a one-and-one. The Mexico native missed the free throw, and the empty trip to the charity stripe followed with the Falcons earning a 70-62 edge.

Eastern New Mexico finished 14-of-20 from the free throw line. Murillo missed three of the six missed shots by ENMU.

Another point emphasized by Võ after the game focused on chances under the basket. Eastern shot poorly from the floor as they only hit 27-of-72 (37.5%) shots. Inside two-point range, ENMU went 21-of-54 (38.8%). The Greyhounds came into the game as the best shooting team in the conference connecting on 51.6% of their shots.

Despite the loss, four players finished in double figures and Võ reiterated that the energy of his squad was not lacking. Freshman Mo Austin was the team's leading scorer for a second-straight game. The Pueblo, Colo. native scored 16 points on 7-of-13 shooting. One of the young guard's mantras over the last couple games has been focusing on his aggressiveness in his play style. The effort showed several times in the contest. He added six rebounds, two assists, a block, and a steal.

Mario Whitley posted his sixth double-double of the season. He finished with ten points and 12 rebounds. He finished with two assists and a block.

Also scoring in double figures were Cougar Downing (12 pts) and Treyvon Byrd (11 pts).

ENMU continued to crash the boards. They won the rebounding battle, 47-35. Both Byrd and Austin finished with six rebounds each.

Freshman Brandon Kehres made some strong contributions off the bench. He totaled eight points on 3-of-5 shooting, including knocking down a pair of shots from deep range.

The Greyhounds will use tomorrow as a travel day as they head to San Angelo, Texas. On Saturday, they will face Angelo State.