Box Score BILLINGS, Mont. – Montana State-Billings shot over 50-percent from the field and had five score in double figures en route to a 95-70 Great Northwest Athletic Conference men's basketball victory against Alaska Saturday night at Alterowitz Gymnasium.
“We let them get into an early rhythm and that can be very dangerous,” head coach
Mick Durham said. “How you set the tone to start the game can make a big difference, but they hit their first couple threes and it seemed we were backpedaling from then on.”
Robert Mayes came off the bench to record a team-high 21 points on nine of 12 shooting for the Yellowjackets (8-6, 3-3 GNAC).
Emery Henning contributed 13 points, while
Antoine Proctor,
Jaxon Myaer and
David Arnold each had 11 points.
MSUB shot 53-percent (35-66) for the game and drained 12 three-pointers on 28 attempts (.429). The Nanooks (4-11, 1-4 GNAC) were held to 39-percent (22-56) shooting on the night and struggled from the charity stripe, making only 19 of 33 (.576) attempts, nearly 20-percent under their season's average. Rebounds were close, but the Yellowjackets won the battle 38-37, despite being outdone 16-11 on the offensive glass.
“[Rebounding] would be the one positive after what happened the other night,” Durham said. “We had to find out what type of character we had after getting outrebounded as bad as we did [at Seattle Pacific]. Tonight we covered the boards, but then we had another leak, so it's a work in progress and we're going to continue to work at it.”
Junior guard
Dominique Brinson (Juneau, Alaska/College of the Redwood) led Alaska with a game-high 23 points, while sophomore center
Sergej Pucar (Banja Luka, Serbia/Jacksonville College) added 14 points. Senior guard
Nico Matthews (Twenty Nine Palms, Calif./College of the Desert) also turned in game-highs of eight rebounds and seven assists.
“[Dominique] comes in with a little more experience,” Durham said. “He handles things a lot better than anybody else on our team and I'm really proud of the way he competed and he got a lot of minutes, so I'm happy he played well both games.”
The game stayed tight in the early going, but with MSUB leading 22-19, Proctor sparked a 10-2 run, seven coming from him, to give the home team a 32-31 lead just before the halfway point of the opening frame. The Nanooks cut it back to six three times, but the Yellowjackets closed the final 6:02 of the first with a 17-5 run for a comfortable 53-35 halftime lead.
Alaska's deficit only grew in the second and with Billings holding a 61-41 advantage, it scored seven of 10 for a 68-44 lead with 13:36 to go. The Yellowjackets led by as many as 30 late in the game to earn a split for the week and hand the Nanooks their second straight loss.
The 'Nooks return home next week for a pair of GNAC matchups, with Western Washington coming to town Thursday, followed by Simon Fraser Saturday. Both games have a 7 p.m. tipoff.
