ANCHORAGE, Alaska – The Alaska Nanooks men's basketball team fell in their season-opener on Saturday, Nov. 9, losing to Chaminade University in Anchorage, Alaska, 64-90. The Nanooks dropped their season opener and are now 0-1, 0-0 GNAC.

The first-half saw newcomer, Shadeed Shabazz leading the way for the Nanooks. Shabazz led all scorers with 11 points heading into the break. The 'Nooks got out to an early 16-13 lead behind Shabazz and Spencer Sweet. The Silverswords found an answer, however. After tying things up at 18-18, Chaminade grabbed the lead and never looked back. They extended the lead out to 22-30, avoiding any push from Alaska to end the half.

While the Nanooks only shot 29% from the field in the first half, they did shoot a combined 93% from the free throw line, going 14-15 as a team as Sweet went 5-5 and Mawich Kachjaani went 4-4. The free throw shooting drew a lot of praise from second-year head coach, Greg Sparling, "We can't expect to win too many games shooting 31 percent from the field, but the one positive thing is we got to the free-throw line and made those free throws."

The shooting improved slightly in the second half for Alaska, shooting a combined 33.3% from the field in the second half, but pairing that with 11.1% shooting from three-point range did not translate to much offensive success. Chaminade found the offensive success late in the second-half, shooting 60% from the field and 44% from three-point range to run away from the 'Nooks late.

Sparling gave a lot of credit to the way Chaminade came out of the gates, "You have to give Chaminade credit, and they went at the boards extremely hard… Chaminade is a good basketball team and they played well together, it showed in the 30 assists they had tonight. We need to get ready for Hawaii Pacific on a short turnaround and we need to continue to get better day by day."

Shabazz and Markel Banks ended as the only 'Nooks scorers to hit double-digits as Shabazz ended with 19, Banks ended with 12 and Ousman Basir Gomez, Jr. ended the night with nine points on 4-6 shooting from the field. Freshman, center, Mawich Kachjaani ended his collegiate debut with eight points and nine rebounds in the post.

Alaska remains in Anchorage for one more game on Sunday, Nov. 10; they will take on Hawaii Pacific at 2:15 p.m. AKT in the Alaska Airlines Center on the campus of the University of Alaska Anchorage.

For more information on the Alaska Nanooks men's basketball team, follow @NanooksMBB on Twitter.