NAMPA, Idaho – Adalberto Diaz told his coach that the guys on the floor were playing good defense and not to disrupt it.

Coach Paul Rush, though, needed some instant offense down the stretch.

Diaz answered that call, checking back in with 3 minutes, 35 seconds to go and immediately hitting a pair of 3-pointers and getting a putback as the Northwest Nazarene men's basketball team rallied past Simon Fraser for an 81-77 victory Saturday.

"I told coach that they were playing good defense – George (Reidy) was in for me because (Simon Fraser) was playing small ball – and I told him to keep George in," Diaz said. "Coach said no, that he needed me on offense to keep scoring. If Coach trusts me to put me in there and I get the ball, I'm going to shoot it."

With the victory and Western Washington's loss to Central Washington, the Nighthawks are now tied for second place in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference.

Diaz scored a career-high 24 points, including eight in a row down the stretch to help the Nighthawks (11-6 overall, 8-4 GNAC) win their seventh consecutive game. It's the first seven-game winning streak for the Nighthawks since the 2010-11 season.

"I told him we needed offense and he went out there and played great," Rush said. "He made big shots for us and won the game."
 

Diaz had been sitting for three minutes and hadn't scored in the second half until he entered.

He immediately sank a 3-pointer from the left elbow to put the Nighthawks on top 74-73 with 3:18 remaining.

After a jumper by Simon Fraser, Diaz hit another 3-pointer. This time from the right elbow to make it 77-75 with 1:40 left.

Simon Fraser (12-9, 5-7) tied it on a putback and on the other end Jayden Bezzant drove the lane and had the ball pop out of his hands as he went up. Diaz was there, though, grabbing it and laying it in for a 79-77 lead that the Nighthawks wouldn't relinquish.

"Our offense was out of sync and he was killing it from behind the arc and inside," Sam Roth said of Diaz. "He hit those clutch 3s. Those were the big plays we needed to win."

The Nighthawks were sluggish in the first half on both sides of the ball. Diaz scored 16 points on 7-of-10 shooting to keep NNU in it.

In the second half, Simon Fraser led by as many as eight and still had a five-point lead with 5:11 to go. The Nighthawks struggled from the free-throw line for most of the game – they were 6-of-18 at one point – but made 10 of their final 11 to help them rally.

"Thursday was an emotional win for us and we felt this letdown coming," Rush said of defeating Western Washington 87-64 on Thursday. "We talked about it and it still happened, but their ability to respond to that adversity is impressive."
 

Diaz added seven rebounds and three blocked shots. Olamilekan Adetunji had 21 points and 12 rebounds, which is his second double-double in a row and third in his last four games. Ezekiel Alley had 12 points and Roth finished with 11.

"Earlier in the season we would have lost that game," Roth said. "This game, we stuck with what we were trying to do and at the end they gave us opportunities and we played solid."

NNU hits the road to play at Central Washington at 8 p.m. MST on Tuesday before returning home to host Montana State Billings at 7:30 p.m. as part of a doubleheader Saturday.

The Nighthawks are after their eighth consecutive win, which would match the longest win streak at the NCAA Division II level for the program.

"We are a really resilient group," Diaz said. "We went through some adversity and we just love each other. In the locker room at halftime, guys weren't panicking. We just said we know we are and we'll come back. Guys just play for each other and it's amazing. It's amazing."