Kansas Wesleyan's eighth consecutive defeat by three points or less was gut-wrenching enough.
The fact that the 83-82 loss to Southwestern on Saturday night inside Mabee Arena eliminated the Coyotes from contention for a berth in the Kansas Conference postseason tournament made it much more difficult.
And the fact that game officials declined to look at a video replay of the controversial final of play of the game then departed without explaining why made it borderline unbearable.
Alex Littlejohn's potentially game-winning shot as time expired was blocked by Southwestern's Zach Hidalgo. Controversy immediately arose as it appeared the block came after the shot banked off the backboard which would have been goaltending and would have given KWU the lead/victory.
No call was made, though, and the three officials sprinted out of the arena as soon as time expired opting not to review the play or discuss the matter despite impassioned pleas to do so from KWU coach Anthony Monson.
"Absolutely goaltending in my mind," Monson said. "The kids deserved to see that play reviewed at the very least. I don't why (it wasn't), they ran out of here so fast we couldn't even have that conversation. It's frustrating they wouldn't even take a look at that.
"There are goaltending calls all the time in games that they review to make sure and they didn't do it. These games matter and this knocked us out of the playoffs."
The Coyotes (7-13 KCAC, 12-14 overall) trailed 52-36 at halftime and fell behind by 19 (57-38) early in the second half. Down 70-56 with 12½ minutes left they abruptly came to life with a 16-2 run that tied the game 72-72 with 6:53 remaining.
Southwestern (12-8, 18-8) responded with a 9-3 burst and led 81-75 with 2:35 left but the Coyotes scored the next five on a Landon Wagler basket and Eric Green's 3-pointer that cut the deficit to 81-80 with 49 seconds left.
After a Southwestern miss Littlejohn gave KWU a brief 82-81 lead with two free throws with 14.0 seconds left but Wyatt Bell's driving layup 4.4 seconds later put the Moundbuilders back on top 83-82. After a timeout Littlejohn got the ball under the basket to the right of the rim. He went up for a contested shot that Hidalgo swatted out of bounds.
"Guys played their tails off the second half, they worked hard, they made the plays they needed to and gave us a chance to win," Monson said. "At the end of the day it's another one-point loss which is frustrating for sure."
Littlejohn was magnificent as always finishing with 28 points, 10 rebounds, three assists and two steals. Freshman Carson Jones scored 22 and Wagler 15 as KWU shot 49.2 percent (31 of 63) overall but was 4 of 17 from 3-point range. The Coyotes won the rebounding battle 31-29 and had just four turnovers.
Trey Abasolo led four Southwestern players in double figures with 28 points. The Moundbuilders shot 50 percent (30 of 60) including 8 of 20 from deep and were 15 of 16 at the free throw line. Hidalgo grabbed 15 rebounds.