Dec. 21, 2007

Final Stats

PORTLAND, Ore. - The University of Northern Colorado men's basketball team closed out a four-game road trip with a 70-63 loss to the University of Portland Pilots Friday evening. The Bears are now 5-6 on the year, while the Pilots move to 4-7.

Junior forward Robert Palacios led the Bears with 13 points, hitting all six of his shots from the field and had three of the team's seven assists. Redshirt freshman Neal Kingman came off the bench to add 10 points in 15 minutes. Sophomore forward Jefferson Mason led the team with nine rebounds and senior guard Thanasi Panagiotakopoulos had a team-high three steals.

The team's leading scorer, junior forward Jabril Banks played just seven minutes in the game due to foul trouble - a common occurrence on the team as they were whistled for 26 in the game.

Northern Colorado shot .431 for the contest, but hit just .188 from beyond the arc (3-of-16) and .696 from the free throw line (16-of-23). The Bears out-rebounded the Pilots, 32-28, but had 20 turnovers for the second straight game.

Portland was led by guard Nik Raivio with 15 points, five rebounds and four assists, while forward Sherrard Watson added 14 points and he was one of three Pilots with two steals.

The Pilots shot .438 for the game and .294 from the three-point line (5-of-17) and connected on .767 from the charity stripe (23-of-30). They also capitalized on Bears' turnovers, scoring 23 points off turnovers.

Portland scored the first six points of the game before Palacios hit a layup with 17:07 remaining to put the Bears on the board. A Sean Taibi jumper at 12:58 tied the game for the first time at 11-11, but the Pilots used a 7-0 run to take the 18-11 advantage and would increase the lead to 16, 38-22 with just under a minute left in the half. Kingman hit a three-pointer with 0:34 remaining to cut the halftime score to 38-25.

The Bears started the second half on a terror with an 18-4 run with the first six points by Banks and three-pointers from Panagiotakopoulos and Taibi and took their only lead of the game on a fastbreak layup by Palacios with 12:36 on the clock, 43-42. Portland answered with a 5-0 run and never trailed again.

Northern Colorado now returns home to begin Big Sky Conference action, hosting the Sacramento State Hornets on Friday, December 28 at 7:05 p.m. They close out the calendar year with a tilt at Northern Arizona on Sunday at 2:00 p.m. in a game televised by Altitude Sports & Entertainment.