INDIANAPOLIS - The IU Indianapolis men's basketball team came up on the short end of an 84-80 overtime thriller to the league's preseason favorite Milwaukee inside the Jungle on Wednesday night (Feb. 5), despite a game-high 25 points from Paul Zilinskas. 

Zilinskas connected on 8-of-19 shots and all six of his free throw attempts for his 11th 20-point game of the season. Alec Millender finished with 13 points, six assists and four rebounds and Sean Craig contributed 12 points. Freshman DeSean Goode turned in his fourth double-double of the season with 11 points and 12 rebounds. 

Jamichael Stillwell finished with 17 points and 14 rebounds for the Panthers (16-8, 9-4 HL) and Erik Pratt added 17 points and six boards off the Milwaukee bench. Themus Fulks piloted the Milwaukee offense with 12 points and 11 assists in the win. 

IU Indy (8-17, 4-10 HL) took an 80-77 lead with 2:19 to play in overtime when Craig swished an open three. However, the Jaguars were held scoreless from there as Milwaukee made play down the stretch to secure the win. 

After Craig missed a three that would've pushed the lead to two possessions with 1:27 left, Milwaukee gathered the rebound and Fulks scored in transition to give the guests the lead. Jarvis Walker was forced into a nearly impossible attempt on the Jaguars next possession and Fulks drilled a pull-up jumper from the right side to push the lead to 83-80. Milwaukee's AJ McKee sealed the game by blocking Zilinskas' potential game-tying three from the corner with six seconds remaining. 

Both teams had shots in the final 10 seconds of regulation to win the game. 

Zilinskas came up short on a turnaround jumper with eight seconds left and McKee was well defended on a misfire from the right wing as time expired. 

The game featured 16 ties and 15 lead changes with IU Indy leading by as many as 10 in the first half. An 11-1 Jaguar run turned a 17-17 tie into a 28-18 lead, ignited by five points from Zilinskas. Milwaukee retaliated with an 8-0 run, sparked by back-to-back buckets inside from Aaron Franklin as the teams ultimately went to halftime tied at 41 all. 

The Jaguars built a seven-point lead with 3:52 to play in regulation before Milwaukee outscored the hosts 9-2 to send the game to overtime. 

"We work our butts off," head coach Paul Corsaro said. "I bring it every single day, my staff brings it every single day and I don't ask anything from our guys we're not giving ourselves and I think our guys respect that. We're getting 110 percent out of them because that's what they're seeing from us. Everyone genuinely wants to be here and turn this thing around and I definitely think we're doing it.

"We're not satisfied either. We're not happy with being right there and losing by four in overtime. We need to win these games. We played hard and we played tough today, but we beat ourselves. We made some really, really dumb mistakes down the stretch."

The Jags finished with just six turnovers against a relentless Milwaukee defense, but were outrebounded by a 49-33 margin by the Panthers. Milwaukee earned a 54-40 advantage in points in the paint and grabbed 22 offensive boards on a night where they shot just 45 percent from the floor. 

IU Indy was limited to 43 percent overall and 7-of-23 (30.4 percent) from deep. While Milwaukee went 11 deep, the Jags played just eight players and saw both Goode and Keenan Garner foul out in overtime. 

Craig played 42 minutes while Millender played more than 39 minutes and didn't commit a turnover. 

IU Indy will hit the road this weekend to face Wright State for the first time this season, taking on the Raiders at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday (Feb. 8) on ESPN+.