SAN RAFAEL, Calif. — The Dominican University of California men's basketball team posted its lowest shooting percentage of the season en route to a 60-51 non-conference loss to visiting Northwest Nazarene.

Dominican, which went 15-of-42 (35.7 percent) for the game, looked noticeably tired in its third game of the week, the first two of which were against nationally-ranked opponents. To further compound its shooting woes, Dominican went 4-of-20 (20 percent) from behind the three-point line and went 0-for-10 from deep in the first half. Dominican also didn't take care of the ball with 19 turnovers resulting in 22 points for the Crusaders.

Taplin gave the Penguins the game's first lead with a pair of free throws but it was short lived. Outside of the first two minutes, Dominican trailed the remainder of the game. NNU started the game 5-of-10 from the field to establish a seven-point lead at the 13-minute mark. By halftime, Dominican trailed 28-17 and was just 5-of-21 (23.8 percent) from the field.

The Penguins hit their first three-pointer 30 minutes into action but used their four second-half threes to pull within four, 49-45, with 3:29 to go. A fast break layup by Josh Ramirez cut the lead to three but NNU answered with two driving layups to extend the lead back to seven with just over a minute to play. Dominican never pulled back within five.

Dominique Taplin scored a team-high 18 points for Dominican with nine points in each half and was the only Penguin to record more than two points in the first half. Christopher Schwartz-Edmisten added 14 points with two of the Penguins' three-pointers and was 6-of-6 from the free throw line. Matt Hayes had a game-high nine rebounds and Ramirez had seven boards.

NNU's Bona N'diaye led all players with 20 points on 7-of-10 shooting.

The Penguins close out the calendar year with a 5-7 mark are are two games under .500 for the first time since Booker T. Harris took over the program for the 2011-12 season. They'll look to get back in the win column on Jan. 3 when they resume PacWest play against Academy of Art (3-6/1-2 PacWest). Tipoff is slated for 3 p.m. in San Francisco. Coverage will be available at dominicanathletics.com/live.