MONMOUTH, Ore. – The Northwest Nazarene men's basketball team fell back into second place Thursday after suffering an 81-66 loss to Western Oregon in Great Northwest Athletic Conference action.

Despite the setback, the Nighthawks still control their own destiny and could potentially still win a share of the GNAC title.

NNU (18-5 overall, 13-4 GNAC) needs to defeat Concordia on Saturday and then sweep Saint Martin's and Seattle Pacific at home next weekend to earn at least a share of the regular-season title and potentially the No. 1 seed to the conference tournament.

"We need to watch some tape tomorrow and see where we are struggling and missing rotations and then turn our attention to Concordia," NNU coach Paul Rush said. "There is still a lot we can take care of and things in our control. We just need to sharpen our focus and move forward."

NNU is trying to make the playoffs for the first time since the 2014-15 season and only the second time since moving to Division II in 2001.

On Thursday, the Nighthawks were hit with a barrage of Western Oregon (18-8, 11-6) 3-pointers in the first half and couldn't recover.

The Wolves made 11-of-20 from downtown in the first 20 minutes and took a commanding 50-23 lead into halftime.

"We knew they were going to shoot the ball well at home," Rush said. "We were struggling a little bit offensively in the first half and that effected how hard we played on the defensive end. We did a good job in the second half playing with a lot more effort and communicating, but we dug ourselves too deep of a hole by letting that stuff get to us."

Adonis Arms had 25 points and 10 rebounds to lead NNU, while James Nelson added 11 points, Obi Megwa had 10 and Jayden Bezzant nine.