Box Score
BELLINGHAM, Wash. — Stingy defense has gotten the Crusaders into the win column a number of times of late, but Thursday the Northwest Nazarene men's basketball team ran into an offensive juggernaut on the road.
Host and 17th-ranked Western Washington just couldn't miss, shooting 56.1 percent from the field and 55.6 percent from 3-point range, winning a shoot-out over the visiting Crusaders, 102-74, in Great Northwest Athletic Conference action.
"We played a very good team tonight that was red hot from the perimeter," NNU head coach Scott Flemming said of the Vikings, who hit 15-of-27 from beyond the arc. "We didn't look like the No. 1 defensive team in the conference tonight. We gave them too many open shots.
"To make it worse, they hit a lot of shots when we guarded them well," NNU's coach added.
Both teams started out strong as the Crusaders (7-8 overall, 4-5 GNAC) grabbed an early 13-9 lead on a Maurice Jones 3-ball with 3 ½ minutes gone.
But the hot-handed Vikings (14-3, 8-1) got their perimeter game rolling, burying a trio of triples in a 21-4 charge that put them in control the rest of the night.
NNU tried its best to hang around but simply couldn't slow down WWU as the top scoring team in the GNAC broke the 100-point barrier for the fifth time this season.
Bouna N'Diaye led the way with a new career-high of 31 points for NNU, while Jones added 14 points and five rebounds, but saw his five-game double-double streak end.
Pol Olivier had 11 points, and Jayden Bezzant chipped in four points and eight assists for NNU, which plays at GNAC cellar-dweller Simon Fraser on Saturday.
"We need to bounce back on Saturday," Flemming said.
