LARAMIE, Wyo. – The new-look Northwest Nazarene men's basketball team showed Wednesday they will be a team to be reckoned with this season.

The Nighthawks lost 62-56 to NCAA Division I Wyoming in an exhibition contest on the road.

"Defensively it was a great game," NNU coach Paul Rush said. "We got a lot of good stops, we just didn't shoot well. We had some good looks and didn't make them. I was proud of the effort they played with and the confidence they came in with against a Division I team.

"We just needed a couple of shots to go and it could have been a different story."

NNU, which lost three of its top four scorers from a year ago and was playing without Jayden Bezzant, made Wyoming work all night.

Junior Sam Roth had a team-high 15 points, while Olamilekan Adetunji and Jaylen Fox added 12 points each.

NNU was 8-of-39 from beyond the 3-point line and shot just eight free throws, but strong defense forced 20 turnovers to keep the Nighthawks in the game.

"We don't have any set number of 3s we want to shoot," Rush said. "But we want to shoot inside-out 3s. We took too many perimeter swing 3s and that was more of an issue than the number we took."

NNU also had to adjust to the longer 3-point lines in Division I basketball.

The Nighthawks were picked to finish seventh in the GNAC preseason coaches poll after GNAC Player of the Year Adonis Arms transferred to Division I Winthrop, Obi Megwa graduated and James Nelson transferred to Dixie State.

Despite the new look for the Nighthawks, though, they showed they have the ability to make some noise this season

Fox, George Reidy, Cayden Wright and Gabriel Murphy all made their first appearances for the Nighthawks after redshirting last season.

"The way we played defense brings confidence," Rush said. "Knowing that we can really defend and turnover the ball and get stops against high-level teams."

Roth added 10 rebounds, four assists and four steals, while Zac Furgerson had five rebounds and Fox had three steals.

The Nighthawks play another exhibition at 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 8 when they host California Miramar during Homecoming festivities.