Box Score



NAMPA, Idaho – Sick and tired, the Crusaders still put up a fight.

Too many missed shots in the first half, and a few missed chances to close the gap against defending Great Northwest Athletic Conference champion Seattle Pacific in the second half proved just the break the Falcons needed to inch away late, though, and score a 77-51 win in the GNAC opener for both teams Thursday at the Johnson Sports Center on the NNU campus.

"The thing we've been talking a lot about is finishing plays, and we got the looks that we want, we executed offensively," NNU head men's basketball coach Dave Daniels said. "We got the looks, now we have to finish it.

"I think defensively it's the same thing," he added. "We got them to shoot the shots we wanted them to take, now we've got to finish the play and finish the defensive possession with that rebound."

Unfortunately for a Crusaders squad still recovering from a serious bout with the flu that sidelined half the roster, the Falcons added to NNU's woes by outrebounding the Crusaders, 40-22, including 13-6 on the offensive end – 9-2 in the opening half.

That led to a 16-8 edge in second-chance points for the Falcons, who shot 50 percent (29-of-58) on the night.
 

The Crusaders (1-7 overall, 0-1 GNAC) shot 19-of-51 (37.3 percent), which included a tough 9-of-28 opening half.

Still, NNU did do what it wanted, holding the Falcons to 31 points and 12-of-30 shooting for the first 20 minutes, though nine first-half offensive boards proved costly.

A Mitch Penner putback stretched the early edge to 16-6 with 8 minutes gone, and a Cory Hutsen bucket grew the Falcons lead to 25-8.

But the Crusaders had lots of fight left in them as a Mike Wright 3-pointer followed by a Kevin Rima layup sparked a comeback, and NNU got as close as 29-20 down on another Wright triple just before halftime.

And in the second half, NNU hung around and hung around, trailing 45-35 after two Aubrey Ball free throws with 13 minutes to play.

But the missed opportunities to finish on both ends slowly added up as the Falcons used an 11-0 surge to break the game open in the final 7 minutes.

"We got the shots we wanted to take, but they got those second and third attempts that just wore us down a little bit," Daniels said, adding, "we missed shots that I think we have normally hit.

"We've shot the ball really well this year, and we got some really good looks, especially in the first half and just didn't knock them down."

In the end, Wright and Ball led the way for the Crusaders with 13 points each in the setback, which is only a small speed-bump on the GNAC road as NNU has 17 more league games remaining.

The next is Saturday when the Crusaders look to earn a league-opening weekend split when they host Montana State Billings on Saturday at 7:30 p.m.