Men's Basketball Falls At Northern Arizona

Dec. 30, 2007

Final Stats

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. - The University of Northern Colorado men's basketball team struggled in the second half and fell to two-time defending regular-season Big Sky Conference champions Northern Arizona, 86-70. The Bears move to 6-7 overall and 1-1 in league action, while the Lumberjacks improve to 9-5 and 1-0 in conference play.

Redshirt freshman forward Neal Kingman, in just his second start of the season, led the Bears with a career-high 17 points, while sophomore forward Jefferson Mason came off the bench to score 14, senior guard Sean Taibi scored 13 in his first start since before the injury and junior forward Jabril Banks knotted 10. Banks and Kingman also led the team with five rebounds each, while senior guard Thanasi Panagiotakopoulos had a team-best six assists and five different Bears each had one steal.

Northern Arizona was led by guard Josh Wilson with 20 points, while forward Kyle Landry chipped in 19, Nate Geiser tallied 16, Zarko Comagic added 11 and Zach Filzen scored 10. Forward Ryan McCurdy and Landry also led the game with 11 rebounds each, while Matt Johnson led with five assists and Landry tallied two steals.

"We had success early in the season, kicking people's tails on the backboard," said head coach Tad Boyle. "After that stretch of games at home, I think we had a +9 rebound margin. We out-rebounded Sacramento State by 20 and won by 14 - and tonight we didn't rebound the ball. I think there's a correlation between rebounding and winning. Northern Arizona is a great team, they're hard to guard, and they make tough shots. I think they out-toughed us tonight and that's frustrating as a coach. The number one key was transition defense and we did not do a very good job of that."

Northern Colorado shot .450 from the field and .381 from the three-point line after starting the game shooting .700 from the arc in the first half. The Bears also struggled from the free throw line for the first time in several games, hitting just 50 percent. Northern Arizona shot .526 for the game from the field and .625 from beyond the arc (10-for-16) and hit .889 from the free throw line. They also out-rebounded the Bears 39-28.

"I was really proud of Neal," continued Boyle. "He's really coming on, you can see it game by game and practice by practice. He single-handedly kept us in the game in the first half. If anything good can come out of tonight, it's the play of Neal Kingman."

Kingman posted a career-high in scoring in the first half, leading all players with 13 points, while Mason added 12. Both players were three-of-four from the three-point line in the first stanza.

The Bears went down 20-8 early in the first half, but used a 13-0 run sparked by three triples from Mason to take their first lead at 21-20. Northern Arizona answered with a layup by Wilson to end the run, but Kingman hit back-to-back three-pointers for the 27-22 advantage. The Lumberjacks used an 8-0 run of their own to take the 30-27 lead and then the two teams traded points to 34-31 NAU when Taibi hit back-to-back jumpers to regain the lead at 35-34. Trailing 38-36 NAU hit consecutive three-pointers and Filzen made two free throws to lead 44-38 but Mason scored a layup right before the buzzer to make the halftime score 44-40.

Northern Colorado made 7-of-10 from beyond the arc in the first 20 minutes and 16-of-27 from the field, while Northern Arizona was 17-of-27 from the floor and 6-of-7 from three-point land.

Northern Arizona opened the second half on an 11-0 run to extend its lead to 55-40 when Banks made the first field goal of the second half for the Bears to start an 8-0 run as the Bears closed within seven, 55-48. NC could get no closer in the game, as NAU used a 15-4 run to open up its largest lead at 70-52 with 7:58 left and hit 10-of-12 free throws down the stretch to win by 16.

Northern Colorado returns home to host Idaho State on Thursday at 7:05 and Weber State, the other co-regular season champion last year in the Big Sky on Sunday at 2:05 p.m. in a game that will be televised on Altitude Sports.