Box Score Press Conference
Photo Gallery
LACEY, Wash.— A late second half surge Wednesday powered by the play of junior guard
Joe Slocum (San Francisco/Communication) helped the Alaska men's basketball team pull away from No. 6 seed Montana State Billings for a 69-59 win in the first round of the 2014 Great Northwest Athletic Conference Championship Tournament at Marcus Pavilion on the campus of Saint Martin's University.
Slocum scored 10 of his game-high 15 points in the second half and helped the third-seeded Nanooks (18-9) break a 49-49 tie with eight minutes to play in the game. He had six points in the last five minutes as Alaska outscored the Yellowjackets (12-15) 20-10 in the game's last 6:13.
The win advances Alaska to Thursday's semifinal game against No. 2 seed Western Washington. It is the same path the Nanooks followed at last season's GNAC Championship Tournament, defeating Montana State Billings in the first round to face the Vikings in the semifinals. Alaska fell to WWU in last year's semifinals 61-43.
Slocum led a group of four Nanooks in double figures Wednesday. Senior forward
Andrew Kelly (Gilbert, Ariz./Justice) scored 14 points and had six rebounds. Senior forward
Stefan Tica (Belgrade, Serbia) scored 13 points, including a go-ahead 3-pointer at the 6:13 mark to put Alaska ahead for good, and grabbed a team-high eight boards.
Senior center
Sergej Pucar (Belgrade, Serbia/Business Administration) tallied 12 points with two 3-pointers. Alaska hit seven treys and shot 33.3 percent from downtown while holding Montana State Billings to a 28.6 percent clip behind the arc. The Nanooks outshot the Yellowjackets 47.2 percent to 45.7 percent and outrebounded them 30-27.
The Nanooks had to overcome two separate scoring droughts in the first half that spanned more than four minutes each. Alaska still held a four-point, 27-23 advantage at halftime, thanks in large part to help on the defensive end. The Nanooks forced 10 MSUB turnovers and held a four-point, 11-7 advantage in points off turnovers at the break. That advantage would grow to 23-11 by game's end as they got 12 points off five more Yellowjackets giveaways in the second.
Montana State Billings also had four players score in double figures, led by Austin Hudson who just missed having a double-double with 14 points and nine rebounds. Jonathan Mesghan scored 13, Kalob Hatcher poured in 12 and had a game-high nine assists, and Devon Wallace had 11 points.
Alaska's pull-away, 20-10 run in the latter half of the second stanza included a 13-3 stretch that started at the 4:04 mark and gave the Nanooks their largest lead of the game at 12 points with less than 30 seconds to play.
Alaska went a perfect 6 for 6 from the free-throw line in the final 3:49 to ice the victory after going 6 for 11 in the game's first 36:01. Kelly made all four of his attempts during that time, as the Nanooks finished 12 for 17 from the line. MSUB was nearly perfect at the charity stripe going 13 for 14.
Senior guard
Ronnie Baker (Vallejo, Calif./Communication) chipped in eight points and had a team-high five assists and three steals to go with two rebounds in the game. Senior forward
Mike Stepovich (Fairbanks, Alaska/Accounting) scored five points and had four rebounds and a steal in 21 minutes off the bench for the Nanooks.
The Nanooks' 18 wins this season are the most they have had since the 2004-05 season when they went 21-9, won a share of the GNAC regular season title and qualified for the NCAA Division II West Region Tournament.
No. 3 seed Alaska takes on second-seeded Western Washington at 4:15 p.m. AST Thursday. The Vikings earned a first-round bye with a second-place finish during the regular season. The teams split their two meetings during the regular season, with Alaska winning 65-61 in Fairbanks on Jan. 4, and WWU beating the Nanooks 53-51 in Bellingham, Wash., on Jan. 30.
