University of Northern Colorado Athletics
Tuesday, November 17
Greeley, CO
7:00 p.m.
University of Northern Colorado
0-1
85
vs
70
Colorado Christian University
0-2
1st half1
2nd half2
FinalF
Colorado Christian
39
31
70
Northern Colorado
49
36
85
Team Stats
CCU
UNCO
FG%
.367
.460
3FG%
.261
.348
FT%
.714
.792
RB
40
45
TO
13
13
STL
8
9
Game Leaders
Pts
19
FGM
7
3FGM
5
FTM
0
Pts
15
FGM
6
3FGM
3
FTM
0
Pts
14
FGM
4
3FGM
0
FTM
6
Pts
11
FGM
4
3FGM
0
FTM
3
Players Mentioned
G
/ Men's BasketballG
/ Men's Basketball
G
/ Men's BasketballF
/ Men's BasketballG
/ Men's BasketballPhoto by: Rob Trubia
@unco_mbb Has Five Finish With Double Digits in 85-70 Win Over CCU
11/17/2015 10:48:00 PM | Men's Basketball
The Bears were led by junior guard, Anthony Johnson who scored a career-high 19 points in the season-opening win.
GREELEY, Colo. – Northern Colorado (1-1) opened Bank of Colorado Arena on Tuesday night with an 85-80 win over Colorado Christian (0-2).
Five players reached double figures in the victory and head coach B.J. Hill improved to 5-1 all-time in home-openers.
For the second straight game junior guard, Anthony Johnson scored a career-high. Johnson eclipsed his previous high of 17 points that he set at Kansas last Friday, pouring in 19 in front of 1,150 fans at 'The Bank'.
Johnson scored 16 points in the first half and finished 7-of-12 from the field and 5-of-8 from three-point land. His five makes from beyond the arc were also a career-high.
Fellow junior guard, Jordan Wilson dropped 15 points on the evening on 6-of-14 shooting, including 3-of-7 falling from three.
Freshman phenom, Jordan Davis also posted a new career-high in his second collegiate game.
Davis scored 14 points with six of those coming from the charity stripe and one monster dunk near the end of the first half that electrified the crowd.
Redshirt sophomore forward, Jeremy Verhagen (11 points) and junior guard, Cameron Michael (10 points) were the other two Bears to finish in double-digits.
"Overall I think we played extremely hard – right now that's pretty much the theme with this team is that they play extremely hard," Hill said about the win. "I didn't think we played extremely smart, but you're going to have that with how young we are and how new we are."
Northern Colorado couldn't miss if they tried in the first half, going 20-of-35 (57.1%) from the field and 6-of-8 (75.0%) from downtown. Things slowed down a bit for the guys from Greeley in the second half (37.5% FG, 18.2% 3FG), but still finished with a season best, 49.2% from the floor and 42.1% from three.
The Bears got out to a comfortable lead in the early goings of the game thanks to Johnson, who scored 11 of the first 19 points, giving UNC a ten-point, 19-9 lead just six minutes in.
UNC built on the score, making it a 25-9 game close to the midway mark of the first half, but the Cougars clawed their way back, going on an 11-2 rally and cutting the lead down to single digits for Northern Colorado (27-20) with less than eight minutes to play until intermission.
The seven points were as close as CCU would get to the Bears in the first 20 minutes of action.
UNC headed into the half with a ten-point, 49-39 advantage.
"They (Colorado Christian) did a good job of making us match up with them – they're a smaller team. For 25 minutes they basically played 6'5" and under, and we couldn't play our bigs because our bigs couldn't guard," Hill added. "They forced our hand it took us out of a lot of offensive execution stuff that we'd like to do with a typical lineup in, so guys had to step up and make plays in situations they weren't normally used to."
The Cougars heated up in the opening minutes of the second half making it just a four point game (54-50) on the heels of guard Zach McLemore.
McLemore led all scorers in the game with 26 points.
Northern Colorado jumped back out to a double-digit lead off a Michael layup at the 13:22 mark, but Colorado Christian refused to go away.
CCU methodically whittled the UNC lead back down to six (66-60) at the midway point of the second period.
Less than thirty seconds later, both Davis and Michael were awarded back-to-back trips to the charity stripe, extending the home team's score back out to a comfortable margin of ten (70-60).
The Bears were able to sustain the double-digit advantage for the remainder of the game, picking up their first win of the 2015-16 season.
Northern Colorado's height played a big role in the victory, outscoring CCU, 28-18 in the paint. UNC's bench also chimed in with 16 points in the win.
"I'll watch UMBC film tonight – I know they're athletic. I know they did a great job and took Wake Forest to a five-point game," Hill said on the team's next opponent. "They've got a point guard that can really go from what I understand."
The men's basketball squad has a quick turnaround hosting the Maui Jim Maui Regional Tournament this weekend, Nov.21-22. The Bears open the tournament with Maryland-Baltimore County on Saturday at 5:00 p.m. and depending on the outcome of the game will either play Cal Poly or Austin Peay at 2:30 p.m. that Sunday.
For the most up-to-date information on the men's basketball team, follow them on Twitter (@unco_mbb) and Instagram (unco_mbb).
NOTABLES
- Cameron Michael finished one rebound shy of a double-double with 10 points and 9 rebounds. He has now led the team in rebounding in back-to-back games.
- UNC shot a season-high 49.2% and 42.1% from the field and three-point range.
- Jordan Davis set new career-highs in points, free throws made, free throws attempted, shots made and shots attempted.
- For the first time this year the Bears had five players finish in double figures.
- Jeremy Verhagen reached double digit points for the first time in his career, setting a new high in points with 11.
- The Bears have won their last four home-openers under coach Hill and move to 5-1 all-time. The only loss came in the 2011-12 season against New Mexico State.
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