The Cardinals fell 82-75 on Saturday night to the Student Princes putting them in jeopardy of missing the National Collegiate Athletic Association tournament.
Otterbein was playing without their star red shirt senior guard Jarius Jones, who was the second leading scorer for the Cardinals.
Heidelberg was led by the guard pair of Jarveil Gainey and Marcos Vazquez as they combined for 39 points on a blistering 67 percent from the field.
The Student Princes took control of the game early and sprung out to a 10-point halftime lead by shooting 42 percent from behind the arc. Then they started the 2nd half like they were going to run away with it as they got the lead up to 14 before the Cardinals freshman forward Dominic Theado knocked down the Cardinals second 3 pointer of the game.
This opened up the three point line for the Cardinals as they were able to hit a blistering 11 3-pointers in the second half after only hitting one in the first half.
The Cardinals were able to make cuts into the lead but could never quite get it down to single digits until there was 18 seconds left in the game after the freshman wing Kyle Niehaus knocked down a three that put more than 1600 fans on their feet to see if the Cardinals could pull out a late rally.
However, Otterbein had to play the foul game, and the Student Princes was able to make 84 percent of their free throws in the 2nd half to put the Cardinals down inside the Rike Center and win the Ohio Athletic Conference championship.
Otterbein will now have to wait and see if their resume is good enough to get the nod to play in the National Collegiate Athletic Association tournament.
