SHREVEPORT, La. - The Centenary men's basketball team was edged 84-81 on Wednesday evening by the University of Texas at Dallas. The stumble moved the Gents to 3-6 on the season while UTD improved to 6-2.

Travion Kirkendoll led the Gents with a career-high 22 points in the outing. The total surpasses his previous best of 20 against Illinois Wesleyan on Nov. 30. The freshman has totaled five games in double figures including four of the last five.

James Sapp added a double-double for the Maroon and White with 15 points and 10 rebounds. It marks the first double-digit rebound effort of the season for the sophomore and his sixth straight double figure scoring outing.

Kendall Demouchet added 16 points off the bench while Justin Cueto supplied 11 points for Gents.

"They out-played us in the first half," head coach Adam Walsh said. "We were better in the second half, but we are continuing to learn as a team. We'll put this one behind us and look ahead to Friday night against Rust College."

Centenary trailed by as many as many as 13 points in the second half, but rallied back to cut the deficit to four on numerous occasions - the last coming with 23 ticks on the clock behind a pair of Sapp free throws. A defensive stand gave the Maroon and White placed the ball in Cueto's hands as he knocked down a 3-pointer with 14 seconds to play cutting the lead to 81-80.

After UTD extended the lead to a pair on a Caleb Banks free throw, Kirkendoll knocked down the backend of a pair of shots from the charity stripe to nip the lead back to one. However, Nolan Harvey knocked down back-to-back shots from the stripe to extend the lead back to three points.

Centenary had one least heave left, but Caden Cheramie's trey attempt was blocked by Rafael Farley as time expired.

The Gents, which outscored UTD in second stanza 46-37, held an advantage in points in the paint (36-27) and second chance points (20-15) along with the bench outscoring the Comets' bench 46-17 in the contest.

Centenary finished the contest shooting 40 percent from the floor and was 22-of-27 from the charity stripe (81.5). UTD connected on 54.3 percent of its shots including a 57.9 clip from behind the arc and 74.2 percent from the free-throw line.

Farley led the Comets with 25 points while Kyle Coulter added 11 points along with a team-best 11 rebounds. Harvey and Matthew Medell each added 13 points to round out the double digit scoring for UTD.

Tip for Friday night is slated for 6 p.m.