Box Score




CALDWELL, Idaho — The score didn't reflect the work the Crusaders accomplished.

The Northwest Nazarene men's basketball team got some much needed experience against a foe and spent the night fine-tuning both its offense and defense, rolling to a 102-45 win over Portland Bible in the opening game of the Taco Bell Shootout at the J.A. Albertson Activities Center on The College of Idaho campus on Friday.

"I felt like our guys, for the most part, played pretty hard most of the game," NNU head coach Scott Flemming said.
 

That was a big key as the Crusaders (2-0 overall) came out on fire and held a 20-point advantage on the Wildcats with just a little more 6 minutes gone in the contest.

After Portland Bible opened with the first two points of the night, NNU took over, going up 19-9 on a Bouna N'Diaye dunk with 4 ½ minutes gone, and building a 29-9 lead on a Jayden Bezzant 3-pointer with 13:42 left until halftime.

The lead kept growing as the night went along as all 11 Crusaders in uniform scored and played at least 10 minutes on the night.

A Dylan Brink putback made it 59-23 at the break, and two free throws by the sophomore guard finished off the 57-point victory, as the outcome was decided early.

But there were bigger victories for the Crusaders to score on this night.

Redshirt freshman post Carlos Garcia had two points and three rebounds in 13 minutes in his first game back from a knee injury, a pleasant sight for the NNU coaches and Crusader fans.

And, the Crusaders themselves maintained their focus on offense and defense for much of the night, despite the numbers on the scoreboard.

"When you get in a game like this it's easy to lose some effort, lose some discipline, and we had a few stretches there were it wasn't great, but we were really trying to run our half-court offense when we didn't have fast breaks, and did OK," Flemming said, as the NNU offense clicked at a 60.3 percent rate (41-of-68 shooting).

NNU also held the Wildcats to 14-of-60 shooting (23.3 percent) and forced 19 turnovers, yet Coach Flemming still wanted a bit more.

"We still need to be better defensively, on team defense," he said, "you want to see them execute what you work on every day, regardless who you're playing."

The Crusaders will put their offense and defense to the test with a tougher challenge Saturday night as the Taco Bell Shootout continues with games at the Johnson Sports Center on the NNU campus.

Action tips off with The College of Idaho playing Portland Bible at 6 p.m., then the Crusaders host Colorado Christian at 8 p.m.

N'Diaye led the way Friday with 19 points for the Crusaders, who also got a second-straight double-double from Kaileb Rodriguez, who had 16 points and 10 rebounds. Bezzant added 14 points in the win and Maurice Jones scored 13 in the Crusader victory.