RELATED CLICKS:
Final stats | Play-by-play | NC season stats | Tad Boyle KFKA postgame | Weber State recap

GREELEY, Colo. -- Northern Colorado junior Devon Beitzel had a historic first half Thursday night and the Bears continued their historic season with an 84-75 statement victory against Weber State inside Butler-Hancock Sports Pavilion.

Beitzel, the Big Sky Conference's player of the week each of the last two weeks, connected on four of seven three-point attempts and made six of his 10 field-goal tries as he racked up 20 first-half points and helped Northern Colorado take a 42-34 halftime advantage.

Beitzel's outburst -- the most in a half for the Bears since Will Figures scored that many in the second half at Montana State in February 2007 and the most in a first half since Jared Ramirez scored 21 first-half points at Augustana in February 2002 -- pushed the Bears (14-3, 3-1 Big Sky) to their fifth win in a row, sixth win in their last seven games and 10th straight home victory. 

"(Devon) has been shooting the ball unbelievably well in practice and it just carried over to the game," Northern Colorado coach Tad Boyle said. "He's playing with great confidence, and it almost looks like the game is slowing down for him out there right now. I think it's a confidence thing, and our guys are doing a great job of screening for him.

"He's one of our best players at moving without the ball, and you saw that play out tonight. That first half, Devon was feeling it."

Northern Colorado came into the matchup with the Wildcats (9-7, 3-1) looking for a marquee victory against a program that has won 18 Big Sky Conference championships and made 15 NCAA Tournament appearances.

And the Bears earned that signature win with four players finishing in double figures, including Beitzel. Taylor Montgomery added a career-high 19 points and Yahosh Bonner chipped in 10.

Senior Will Figures became just the third Division I player in school history to score 1,000 points and the 13th player overall when he drained a floater from the right side at the 12:35 mark in the first half. He finished with 14 points, bringing his career total to 1,009, 164 points shy of Northern Colorado's top-10 all-time scoring list.

With the win, the Bears extended their home winning streak to 10 games and continued to author one of the best seasons in school history. Northern Colorado has only had a better winning percentage after 17 games one other time in its 106 seasons of play (1966-67, 15-2).

The Bears also snapped Weber State's 15-game Big Sky victory streak and the Wildcats' 10-game Big Sky road victory streak.

"We're not sneaking up on anybody anymore," Boyle said. "We know that and our guys know that. So we've got to be ready to come out from the get-go. And it starts with practice. We had a great week of practice.

"We're playing with great poise, great energy and great confidence, and the guys are really looking for each other, and that's what I love. We had four guys in double figures out there, but it could be six or seven guys who are a threat to get in double figures every night."

Northern Colorado maintained a comfortable lead throughout most of the first half and into the first part of the second Thursday before Weber State pulled to within five, 52-47, following a pair of Damian Lillard free throws at 14:52.

The Bears responded with a 20-5 run over the next six minutes, though, to pull ahead 72-52 at 8:39.

"We've kind of gotten soft a little bit at times in the second half, and people have made runs, but we've always answered those runs," Boyle said. "We did it again tonight. I think we've settled for the jump shot maybe sometimes a little too quickly, but our guys got it inside and we got to the free-throw line in the second half, which is something we need to."

Northern Colorado would push its advantage to 22 about a minute later before pulling its starters and getting its bench some valuable minutes against a top-notch program.

Probably not the way Boyle envisioned the late minutes of such a high-profile game playing out, but he'll take it. He said after the game he was a little worried that his players didn't necessarily grasp what they had just accomplished.

Northern Colorado improved to 2-5 all-time against Weber State with the win.

"Weber State is a great second-half team," he said, "and the thing is we beat a good team tonight. We beat a good basketball team tonight. The mood in our locker room was almost, like, ‘Ho hum,' but I told our guys we've got to enjoy this because we can only enjoy it until about midnight and then we've got to get ready for Idaho State."