CHICAGO – Roosevelt's shot at history came up just short in its Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference opener with No. 10 Lake Superior State escaping the Goodman Center with a 79-77 win Thursday night.

The host Lakers (2-5, 0-1 GLIAC) have never beaten a top-10 team in their history, and it didn't look like Thursday was going to be that day. Lake Superior State came out attacking Roosevelt in the paint and used that advantage to build a 14-point lead. In the opening half, the visitors outscored the Lakers 26-16 inside, 12-4 in second-chance points and converted eight Roosevelt turnovers into nine points.

However, the winter magic was in the air in the second half as Roosevelt flipped the script in a hurry on the 10^th-ranked team in the country. The Lakers had just one turnover in the second half and scored nine points off five second-half turnovers from Lake Superior State. They held the visiting Lakers to just four second-chance points and tied them in points in the paint.

What was an 11-point halftime deficit for Roosevelt was just seven after four minutes and down to just a single point eight minutes into the second half. It was the duo of Forte Prater and Enari Thomas that again led the charge for the Lakers on offense while Kennedy Brown anchored the fort on defense.

Prater scored 18 of his game-high 30 points in the second half and Thomas scored 13 of his 25 in the second half as well. The dynamic duo was in attack mode all night and finished a combined 13 of 17 from the free throw line and 20 of 34 from the field. In just the second half, the pair shot 55 percent and made all seven free throws between the two of them.

Roosevelt's comeback started on the defensive end as the Lakers held Lake Superior State to just 39 percent shooting in the final 20 minutes. Brown collected nine of his 14 rebounds in the second half helping him to his second double-double of the season with 10 points. The strong defense allowed Roosevelt to easily get into transition and score easy points on fastbreaks.

The Lakers put together a 9-0 run early in the second half to cut the deficit to two, but it would take nearly seven more minutes for Roosevelt to fully catch up. The deficit hovered between one and four points for much of the action after the 9-0 spurt until Prater drained a step-back 3-pointer with 7:54 left to give Roosevelt a one-point lead. Thomas added a layup to extend the lead to three and Griffin Yaklich hit a corner 3 to give Roosevelt a four-point lead, its largest of the day, with 5:39 remaining.

The two teams traded shots for the next two minutes until Lake Superior State regained the lead for good with a 3-pointer with 3:13 left. Roosevelt hung around for the final three minutes and put the pressure on the No. 10 Lakers, but it took a final 3 from Prater at the buzzer for Roosevelt to cut the deficit down to two.  

Thomas also added a team-best six assists to his 25 points while Prater had three helpers to go along with his 30 points. Brown was credited with just two blocks in a physical game around the rim although he altered plenty of other shots from the Lake Superior State frontcourt.

UP NEXT: Roosevelt has one more chance at a top-10 upset on Saturday afternoon as No. 6 Ferris State comes to the Goodman Center for a 3 p.m. matchup against the Lakers.