NILES — The Niles boys basketball team may not have walked off the court with a win on Tuesday night, but they did walk off accomplishing something they have been working on all season.

In the Viking’s 56-53 loss over the Spartans, the outcome came down to the final minute of the game.

Coming back from a 14-point deficit that began at the end of the first quarter and continued through the second, the Vikings entered the locker room trailing Battle Creek Lakeview 24-37.

“We’ve had so many games where we go into halftime and we are just within distance,” said head coach Patrick Touhey. “We have to begin to try to figure out how we can come out in the second half with the same resolve, urgency and passion defensively as we do when we start the game.”

Touhey said the team’s halftime was dedicated to trying to capture that before game, feeling and shifting it into the second half.

Immediately when Niles came back out, Touhey was slightly worried as his team had three turnovers, which could have resulted in easy Lakeview scoring opportunities to make the gap on the Vikings wider.

“Every time, it was the defense resolve, the defensive energy and their commitment to getting stops one at a time to stay in this game,” Touhey said. “That’s what the team kept committing to.”

Touhey said the team needed to be completely present defensively — no looking at the scoreboard or worrying about the offense. In the third quarter, Niles was able to keep the Spartans limited to scoring 13 points, while they added 17 to its side of the scoreboard. Junior Michael Gilcrese added 12 in the third quarter alone.

As Niles started to gain some confidence moving forward, Touhey said the two biggest factors in the team’s come back was taking care of the basketball to avoid turnovers and getting defensive stops when necessary.

“The other thing that we did was we attacked their press when we got it in the middle of the floor,” Touhey said. “Mike Gilcrese, he just got the ball in the middle, and he’s just such a big kid with good handles that he was just, ‘I’m getting to the rim and I’m scoring.’”

Gilcrese’s drives to the basket awarded him with a team-high 22 points of the night. He also went 5-of-6 shooting free throws.

Touhey said his team did a nice job of attacking after getting past half court. This was the first time all year. He sensed his team accomplished the feat.

To break the Spartans’ half-court press, the Vikings used cross-court passes, which led to scoring opportunities at the rim — things Touhey said his team had not done in the past.

In the final quarter of play, the Vikings kept the Spartans’ scoring opportunities to six points, as they added 12. Gilcrese and Demarien Nichols both added four points, respectively, while Zach Stokes and Dimetrius Butler both added two points.

With more than six minutes remaining, the Spartans also added seven fouls and were called for a technical.

In one of the final plays of the game, the Vikings tried to find Gilcrese under the rim, hoping to get the three points they needed to take the lead.

“What we tried to do was open the space, put Mike down on the opposite block, and we wanted a guard setting a pick on his player,” Touhey said. “That means if they switch, we got a guard on Mike, who can post up or seal and get that baseline pass. That’s exactly what happened. Mike had been up with a smaller player. I thought for a minute that shot was going in. They executed it perfectly.”

Touhey left his team with this outlook: if a stranger walked into the Niles High School gym, did not know the team’s 2-16 record, and watched them play against a bigger, stronger and, in some positions, quicker Battle Creek Lakeview team the way they did tonight, they would probably say the team has had a heck of a season of basketball.

“We would tell them ‘No, quite frankly, we’ve only won two games,’” Touhey said. “This is how much our kids love each other. This is how much they care for each other, and this is the heart they play for each other with. How can a coach ask for any more than that?”

He left off by saying his team had the hearts of giants in Tuesday’s loss.

Niles basketball will return on Friday against Lakeshore with tipoff for the girls varsity game at 5:45 p.m. and the boys varsity game approximately starting at 7 p.m.