@unco_mbb Cruise to a 97-73 Win Over Northern New Mexico

Saturday, December 3

Greeley, CO

2:00 p.m.

University of Northern Colorado

3-5 (0-0)

Northern New Mexico College

2-9 (0-0)

Northern New Mexico

Northern Colorado

Photo by: Dean Popejoy

12/3/2016 5:34:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

By: Kobee Stalder, UNCBears.com

GREELEY, Colo. – After being on the road for 15 days, it took Northern Colorado (3-5, 0-0 Big Sky) a minute or two to get back into the swing of things in front of its home crowd on Saturday afternoon. The Bears took just a six-point lead into the half against Northern New Mexico (2-9, 0-0 Aii) before a strong defensive effort in the last 20 minutes of the contest helped the team etch a 97-73 win.

How It Happened:
A lead in the first half was hard to come by for UNC. The Eagles did a great job of knocking down shots on the perimeter, while the Bears had to work to keep pace with Northern New Mexico.

The lead changed 14 different times in the opening period, as both teams traded bucket-for-bucket.

Ten minutes in to the game, Northern New Mexico stretched its lead to four (21-17) after Mikaere Watene hit one of the team's seven three-balls in the first half, accounting for 21 of the Eagles' 42 points.

The Bears were able to counter with a freshman guard, Mike Ranson trey to swing the score back in their favor, but the lead didn't last long.

UNC finally found some breathing room towards the end of the half thanks to redshirt sophomore forward, Ibrahim Sylla and junior guard, DJ Miles.

The duo combined for nine points in a two-minute span to put Northern Colorado out in front, 47-38 with 90 seconds remaining.

NNMC was able to cut the lead down to six by halftime sending UNC to the locker room with a 48-32 advantage.

The six-point lead was enough for UNC as they never trailed for the remainder of the game. Sophomore guard, Jordan Davis took the reins of the offense in the second half, scoring 11 of his 15 points and got some major contributions from Miles and freshman guard, Kyle Carey.

Miles led all UNC scorers in the win, dropping a career-best 20 points, while Carey also finished with a career-best 12 points.

Miles was a lethal 4-of-8 from beyond the arc, and shot 50% from the floor.

The big man, Sylla, was a major factor in the victory as he added 17 points and six rebounds.

A three-point from redshirt sophomore guard, Chaz Glotta put the UNC lead into double figures for the first time in the game with 15:06 to play, and it only went uphill from there.

The Bears used a quick 5-0 run with a little over eight minutes remaining to make it an 82-66 ball game, before finishing on a 9-0 run to seal the 24-point win.

NNMC's Watene led all scorers on the night with 24 points on 10-of-11 shooting, including 4-of-4 from three-point land.

Game Changer(s):
Ibrahim Sylla and DJ Miles provided a spark on the offensive end for UNC.. Miles finished with a career-best 20 points, with 12 of those coming in the first half, while Sylla complimented with 17 points, also reaching double figures before halftime with 11.

Key Stat:
The paint touches by Northern Colorado were a major factor this afternoon as UNC outscored Northern New Mexico 50-26 in the paint.

In Their Words:
Head Coach, Jeff Linder:
"First and foremost I want to commend Coach Cordova, his guys came out and battled considering their leading scorer (Jeffrey Long) didn't play in the game and you can see they really rallied behind that. For them to challenge us the way they did was good for our guys. Being a young team, it was good for us to have to sweat it a little bit. I'm not sure we would have gotten anything out of it by beating a team by forty or fifty points. I think right now with the way we're trying to grow as a team, as many situations that we can be put in is a good thing."

"When you play the Division-two teams, the NAIA schools, the way they can beat you is with the three and we did a poor job of defending that in the first half. I thought we made some good adjustments to minimize that in the second half."

Junior Guard, DJ Miles
"Since I've been here and been practicing, I've just tried to focus on the offense and get used to the flow of everything. I've been working on my shot and fortunately everything has been falling lately, so it's been feeling good. I just try to be a step ahead of everybody. If I see Jordan [Davis] drive, I try to put myself in a position to get a shot off and hopefully make it."

Sophomore Guard, Jordan Davis
"I feel like we changed defensively in the second half. We picked up our intensity. In the first half we just tried to see if we could outscore them, but we knew in the second half we had to come out and get a lot of stops because we felt like we were more capable of playing like we did against Arizona and Oklahoma."

Notables:
- Northern Colorado finished the game 54.7% shooting from the field. The Bears knocked down 35 of their 64 attempts.
- This was the first game the team shot over 70% from the free throw line. UNC ended 10-of-13 (76.9%) from the charity stripe, getting major help from Kyle Carey, who went 5-of-6 from the line and DJ Miles, who was a perfect 4-of-4.
- UNC won the rebound battle, outboarding the Eagles 36-27.
- The Bears finished with five players in double figures: DJ Miles (20), Ibrahim Sylla (17), Jordan Davis (15), Kyle Carey (12) and Chaz Glotta (12).
- Jordan Davis was one assist shy of a double-double, recording 15 points and nine dishes.
- UNC tallied a game-best 20 assists as a team on 35 made shots.
- The game counted as an exhibition contest for NNMC.

Up Next:
The Bears are back on the road for its next two games. UNC will visit in-state foes, Colorado State and Denver. UNC will head to Fort Collins next Saturday, Dec. 10 to take on the Rams and then travel down to Denver the following Saturday, Dec. 17 to face the Pioneers.