Box Score




NAMPA, Idaho — They went toe-to-toe with the highly-ranked Falcons, and for much of the night the Crusaders won the fight.

But a six-minute stretch late in the opening half proved costly, spotting 22^nd-ranked Seattle Pacific an advantage it never let go of in an 81-71 victory over the Northwest Nazarene men's basketball team Thursday night in Great Northwest Athletic Conference play at the Johnson Sports Center.

"You always want to win the game, there's no doubt about that, but I do feel like we showed some improvement tonight," NNU's head coach Scott Flemming said. "We're playing a team that's 22 in the country with a lot of seniors; they're a good team, they're a great team."

But the Crusaders (7-14 overall, 3-12 GNAC) led that great team much of the opening half as a Leeor Konenkov layup put NNU on top 15-7 early and a Mike Wright bucket gave the Crusaders a 17-13 advantage midway through the session.

With 7 minutes to go before halftime, Detwon Rogers tossed in a long-range deuce and NNU held a 25-20 lead, and all the game's momentum it seemed.
 

Then the game turned in the blink of an eye as Coleman Wooten sandwiched a pair of 3s around two steals for the Falcons (18-5, 11-4), who went on a 17-0 run to take control.

NNU went 0-for-4 with four turnovers during the six-minute stretch, which proved to be all Seattle Pacific needed to grab a lead it never relinquished.

"I felt like early in the game our match-up zone was really good, gave them some problems," Flemming said, adding, "then we had that stretch of turnovers where they scored off them and that hurt us."

The Crusaders battled hard the rest of the way trying to regain the lead, getting a Bouna N'Diaye buzzer-beater 3 just before halftime to trail just 39-31.

A pair of N'Diaye free throws early in the second half made it 48-39, and a Kyle Bailey jam with just over 3 minutes to go made it 75-63, but the Falcons weathered every NNU charge to spoil an otherwise good effort by the Crusaders.

"It's not the result you want, but as a coach you're always looking for positives and I feel like there were a lot of positives out there tonight," Flemming said.

One positive was the play of Rogers who finished with 25 points and seven rebounds to lead NNU in both categories.

N'Diaye added 15 points and Wright scored 12 and dished out three assists for the Crusaders, who look to build on those positives Saturday when they host St. Martin's at 7 p.m.