LACEY, Wash. – Northwest Nazarene men's basketball wasn't able to overcome a poor shooting performance in the GNAC semifinal as Seattle Pacific was able to advance with a 73-68 victory.
The Nighthawks fall to 20-7 overall on the season. NNU will now need to earn at at-large bid to the NCAA Regional if their season is to continue.
In the latest regional rankings released on Wednesday, NNU was slotted seventh with eight teams qualifying for the regional. The Nighthawks need to hope that teams that were ranked below them do not make deep runs or win their conference tournaments across the GNAC, CCAA, and PacWest in order to keep hold of an NCAA postseason spot.
The Selection Show is scheduled to occur on Sunday night (March 9) at 9:00 p.m. MT on NCAA.com. If NNU is selected, it will be their third appearance at regionals in the last five seasons.
The Nighthawks went 4-19 (21.1%) from deep in today's semifinal, while the Falcons took advantage of hot three-point shooting by going 13-26 (50%). NNU played cleanly, only committing a season-low two turnovers, but the three-point shooting and a 10-16 effort at the free throw line (including two missed front ends of one-and-ones) contributed to the defeat.
SPU led for much of the first half, starting with a 6-2 run and building their lead to six at the 4:27 mark when a triple made it 30-24 Falcons.
NNU did not let SPU score for the rest of the half, though, executing an 8-0 run over the final four minutes to take a 32-30 lead into the break. All eight points were in the paint, with
Yaru Harvey converting two layups and Biggie Bergersen and
Kye Dickson adding the other two buckets.
The Nighthawks' halftime lead was despite shooting just 1-11 (9.1%) from three-point range. NNU was +5 in the rebounding battle, though, and only committed one turnover across the opening 20 minutes.
Sullivan Menard scored the first five points of the second half by himself with a jumper and three free throws after getting fouled in a three-point attempt, putting NNU up 37-30.
SPU responded with a 14-2 run, however, including a 4-4 effort from deep, to take a 44-39 advantage at the 15:06 mark. NNU stormed back though to take a 48-47 lead on a
Briggs Ranstrom layup with 11 minutes to play.
The teams went back and forth over the next few minutes, but a couple more treys by the Falcons enabled them to pull away for a seven-point lead, 62-55, with five minutes remaining.
NNU could not overcome that deficit, cutting it to three on a Menard triple with nine seconds left but eventually falling 73-68.
Yaru Harvey led the Nighthawks with 19 points, five rebounds, and three steals.
Easton Reagan had 11 points and six boards, while
Sullivan Menard finished with 10 points.
Briggs Ranstrom had nine points, eight rebounds, and four blocks.
Kye Dickson was held to a season-low six points, just the second time he did not score in double figures this season.
As mentioned, the Nighthawks now await their fate to see if they are selected to participate in the NCAA Tournament when selections are announced Sunday night. If chosen, regionals will start next weekend with location, opponent, dates, and times information available as soon as possible on nnusports.com.
