William Jewell took advantage of the absence of a key Panther and knocked off Drury 73-59 in a Great Lakes Valley Conference matchup Thursday night at the O'Reilly Family Event Center.

The Panthers (16-8, 10-6) played without senior forward Cameron Adams, who injured his back in last Saturday's loss at No. 12 Wisconsin-Parkside and has yet to practice this week. With his 17 points per game out of the lineup - Adams scored a season-high 31 points at Jewell in Drury's 74-57 victory there on January 17 - Drury simply didn't have enough offensive firepower to counter the Cardinals (11-13, 7-9).

Jewell led 37-29 and pushed that advantage as high as 16 points midway through the second half, but watched the Panthers cut that lead to five points (56-51) with 5:51 to go on a Kameron Bundy jumper.

But the Cardinals countered with a 7-0 run over the next three minutes to push it back to a 12-point advantage, and the Panthers got no closer than nine the rest of the way.

"Jewell came out and started the game and we made some shots ... we just never could get a handle on them to get some stops, or we never could get the rebound," Drury coach Steve Hesser said. "The second half we struggled to get our bigs involved. We just couldn't stop 'em. They did a better job of executing their stuff than we did of guarding them."

Bundy finished with 19 points, while Drake Patterson added 12 points (on four 3-pointers) and Deon Pettigrew had a career-high 11 points off the bench for the Panthers. Pettigrew led DU on the boards with four as Drury was beaten 37-22 in rebounding by the Cardinals, who got 13 boards from Austin Regier.

"You've got to get rebounds to finish possessions," Hesser said. "They were trying to control tempo late and play a grind game, and they did a good job of it."

Christian Hildebrandt had 15 points, Darius Tomlin added 13 points and D'Vante Mosby finished with 12 points in 15 foul-plagued minutes for the Cardinals, who knocked the Panthers into a first-place tie with Truman State for the GLVC West lead. The Bulldogs won 86-80 at Maryville and hold the tie-breaker over the Panthers by virtue of their 85-81 win head-to-head in Springfield on January 29. Truman has games remaining at home with UMSL on Saturday and at Quincy next Thursday. 

Drury is home again on Saturday for Homecoming and the fourth annual Overflow The O' festivities, with a 3:15 p.m. start. Drury Athletics will retire the jerseys of former Panther greats Alex Hall and Brandon Lockhart - stars of the 2012-13 NCAA-II national champions - during a ceremony that will immediately follow the DU-Rockhurst women's game, which tips off at 1 p.m. 

Advanced tickets are strongly encouraged, and available by calling (417) 873-6389 or dropping by the O'Reilly ticket office between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Friday.