FAIRBANKS, Alaska -- The Alaska Nanooks ran into a hot shooting Seattle Pacific squad on Thursday night, as the Falcons connected on nearly 50 percent of their field goal attempts to hand the Nooks a 79-69 Great Northwest Athletic Conference defeat at the Alaska Airlines Court.
Alaska's loss to SPU breaks a third place tie between the two squads in the GNAC, as they the Falcons now stand alone in third in the conference standings with an 8-3 record. The Nooks drop into a fifth-place tie with Central Washington, as they are now 7-4 in league games and 13-6 overall.
"We really dug ourselves a hole in the first half," said head coach Mick Durham after the game. "We just weren't very good, but give (Seattle Pacific) credit, they shot it extreme well during the first half. Second half was more of ourselves. We are going to stay positive, and focus on the second half and build off of that. We ran into a team we beat last time on their home court, and they were determined to get us back, and they did."
Seattle Pacific shot 58.6 percent from the field in the first half to build a game-high 22-point lead going into the break. The Falcons found early success from behind the arc, by shooting an even 50 percent (8-of-16) in the first 20 minutes of play.
The Nanooks stormed back out of the break, and cut SPU's lead nearly in half, as they led, 61-49, with 10:09 remaining in the game. Senior Almir Hadzisehovic made it a two-possession game with 7:53 left to play, as his layup capped off a 9-0 run to make it a six-point Falcon lead at 61-55.
SPU withstood Alaska's comeback attempt, and scored nine of the game's next 11 points to regain a double-digit advantage at 70-57 with 5:13 left in the game. The Nanooks could not pull any closer than nine points for the remainder of the game, and suffered a 10-point defeat at home.
"We wanted to try to cut their lead to 10 points around the 10 minute mark of the second half," Durham expressed. "We were able to get it down to six, but then we started to miss free throws and layups. We started the game missing layups, we finished the game missing layups. It might have been a different game if we got off to a little better start. This was a tough game, and nothing went right for us in the first half, but we played much better in the second half."
Senior Travante Williams scored a team-best 19 points on Thursday. The Anchorage, Alaska native hit two 3-point field goal in the game, and went a perfect 7-for-7 at the free throw line. The 19-point outing extends Williams' double-digit scoring streak to nine games.
Hadzisehovic recorded a season-high in points with 18. The Belgrade, Serbia native shot 70 percent (7-of-10) from the field and pulled down six rebounds. The post player's performance helped the Nanooks outscore SPU, 34-26, in the paint. Alaska also scored 10 second-chance points, as they pulled down 12 offensive rebounds.
The Nooks forced the Falcons into 15 turnovers, while only committing 11. Alaska picked up 10 steals on Thursday night, as senior Joe Slocum collected four, and senior Isaac Ladines picked up three.
Seattle Pacific had three player reach double-digits, led by Mitch Penner's game-high 29 points.
Alaska returns to action on Saturday, Jan. 28, with a contest against Saint Martin's. The Saints come to Fairbanks looking to pull the sweep of their Last Frontier trip, as they defeated Alaska Anchorage, 73-70, in Anchorage tonight. Tip-off from the Alaska Airlines Court is set for 7 p.m. AKT.
For more information on the Alaska Nanooks men's basketball team, follow @NanooksMBB on Twitter.
