Box Score




NAMPA, Idaho — The Crusaders gave their fans an early Christmas gift in the form of an inspired 40-minute effort.

The Northwest Nazarene men's basketball team battled hard all night, overcoming both foul trouble and the preseason favorite to win the Great Northwest Athletic Conference title, and handed visiting Alaska Anchorage a 71-67 defeat Saturday night at the Johnson Sports Center.

"If you're going to get a win, this is the team to do it against," said NNU head coach Scott Flemming, whose team snapped a four-game skid with the victory.
 

"This gave us a lot of confidence," NNU's coach added. "And this isn't like beating the bottom team, this is the best team, so it should tell us when we're playing our best how good we can be.

"We need to build on this, we still have a long way to go, it's just one win, but it's a great win."

A win that NNU (3-4 overall, 1-1 GNAC) earned with a determined effort on defense all night long as the Crusaders held UAA — which came in shooting 47.2 percent from the field — to 32.8 percent (19-of-58).

"I thought our defense was great tonight," Flemming said. "Our man-to-man, half-court defense I thought just bothered them all night long.

"And we put together a good plan to trap their stud (Sekou Wiggs) out there."

Wiggs, who came in leading the GNAC averaging 26.4 ppg did score 20 in the contest, but the Preseason GNAC Player of the Year had little impact on the final outcome.

Instead, it was the efforts of a balanced NNU attack that determined who would win, an attack that started off hot as a Jayden Bezzant bucket early put the Crusaders up 11-3 with 7 minutes, 57 seconds gone.

UAA (5-3, 1-1) did battle back and grabbed 1-point leads twice in the opening half, but a Bezzant long-ball just before the buzzer sent NNU into the locker room up, 31-28.
 

And unlike two nights earlier, where the lead slipped away in an 81-72 setback to Alaska, this time the Crusaders refused to lose.

The Seawolves did take a 43-42 lead on two Corey Hammell free throws — and fouls did play a factor as three Crusaders fouled out.

But NNU overcame that lead, and foul trouble, as Alaska Anchorage's largest advantage of the night was just 49-47 with 9:25 left to play after a Sjur Berg's dunk.

A Carlos Garcia putback erased that difference, then Maurice Jones added another offensive board and bucket that put NNU on top for good.

Then, NNU hit 8-of-12 free throws in the final 5 minutes to ice the victory.

A big momentum-building victory for the Crusaders, who don't much time to savor the win as The College of Idaho rolls into the Johnson Sports Center this Tuesday night at 7 for the second half of the United Heritage Mayor's Cup rivalry.
 
"We just played together and never let down, we never let down," Flemming said. "We were up two to five points most of the game, they took a couple leads, but we never gave it up.

"That's progress with this team."

N'Diaye finished with 13 points in the Crusader win, as did teammate Pol Olivier, while Bezzant and Kaileb Rodriguez each tossed in 12 points for NNU in the victory.