FORT WAYNE – Groundhog Day was Thursday. But in keeping with the theme of the popular Bill Murray film, when each day in Punxsutawney, Pa., was the same, Friday’s NBA D-League game at Memorial Coliseum was nearly identical as the night before.

For the second consecutive night, the floundering Mad Ants fell behind early, spent the rest of the evening trying to catch up and never did. This time it was a 109-97 loss to the same Maine Red Claws team that beat them Thursday, 115-109; a team that has 11 wins this season, with three of them coming against the Ants.

As for the Ants (10-18), who have dropped into second-to-last place in the East Conference standings, that’s four losses in their last five games and six in their past eight. Furthermore, their next game is against Maine on Thursday at the Coliseum.

“We’ve got to keep telling guys that game’s done – it’s over,” coach Steve Gansey said. “Guys were hot. Yesterday, Cam (Jones) was hot. (Friday) he started off 0 for 8. That’s what happens. Every shot he had was a pretty good look, but they just weren’t falling.”

It wasn’t just Jones, who scored 28 points Thursday but had 12 Friday on 4-of-14 shooting. Most of the Ants couldn’t shoot straight. As a team, they took 20 more shots than Maine (98-78) but made five fewer baskets (43-38).

“It was a mixture of that (poor shooting) and transition ‘D,’ ” Jones said. “We gave them too many easy buckets. I think we kind of put our heads down when we were missing shots, myself included. We play hard. We always fight to the end. It’s just the little things that get us.”

In this case, it was Maine’s 6-foot-1 guard Courtney Pilgrim that got the Ants when he scored on a three-point play, then 14 seconds later went in for a fast-break layup that sent Maine ahead 40-37 with 6:21 still to go in the first half. The Ants would never see the lead again.

“We bust each other every day in practice during the week,” Gansey said. “We show it in spurts during the game, but we don’t do it the whole time during the game. I think there’s a part of the game where we hung our heads, and we can’t have that. Five, six minutes left in the game, it’s got to be all out.”

Although seven players scored in double figures, they weren’t enough to offset the 26 scored by Maine’s Morris Almond and the 18 by Kenny Hayes, who were a combined 19 of 31 from the floor.

Darnell Lazare, who scored 31 the night before, again led the Ants with 20 points.

stwarden@jg.net