BURNABY, British Columbia – It took a total team effort Saturday for the Northwest Nazarene men's basketball team to get back on the winning track.

From Marko Lepovic's offensive rebounding to big free throws from a Dylan Brink, Obi Megwa and most importantly Maurice Jones.

Jones made a free throw with less than a second to go to give the Nighthawks an 82-81 victory against Simon Fraser in Great Northwest Athletic Conference action.

After Othniel Spence tied the game on a layup with 4.4 seconds left, Jones got the ball out of bounds raced the length of the court and was fouled on a layup attempt. He made the first one and purposely missed the second to end the game.

"The final play was if they pressured the ball to get it to Mo and hit Obi on the run," head coach Paul Rush said. "If they didn't pressure the ball for Mo to just go and have other guys in space.

"We told them (in the timeout) that we had enough time to get all the way to the rim to on the shot."

Jones had a similar play Thursday night in a one-point loss to Western Washington where he went hard to the basket but had his attempt blocked in the final seconds. He was not to be denied this time.

The victory ends a three-game losing streak for NNU (7-5 overall, 3-3 GNAC). The Nighthawks host Alaska at 7 p.m. Thursday at Johnson Sports Center.

On Saturday, NNU trailed by 14 points early in the second half, but as they have throughout the season the Nighthawks chipped away at the lead.
The key down the stretch was certainly offensive rebounding.

"We talked about needing to create more possessions because we weren't shooting well outside," Rush said. "Those were just a great effort by Marko to tip those out and basically win the game for us."

Lepovic and Jayden Bezzant each had offense rebounds inside of two minutes, Jones got an offensive rebound off of his own missed free throw and then with 29 seconds left Lepovic tipped a missed 3-pointer by Megwa to Bezzant.

Megwa then made two free throws for an 80-77 lead. After a layup by Simon Fraser, Brink was fouled and made one of two to make it 81-79. Simon Fraser tied it again, setting up Jones' heroics.

"I'm really proud of Dylan, Mo and Obi making free throws down the stretch," Rush said.

Megwa finished with 27 points and six assists, while Jones had 24 points and 11 rebounds. Jones was 6-of-11 from beyond the 3-point arc. Bezzant added 15 points and Sam Roth had 10. Lepovic didn't score, but he pulled down seven rebounds.

Two days after scoring a career-high 40 points, Kedar Salam went for 27 on 11-of-22 shooting to lead the Clan (8-6, 2-4). Salam is one of three players in Simon Fraser history to score at least 40 in a game.