Recap: Sanders Scores Career High to Lead @UNCO_MBB to Route of OPSU

Sunday, December 10

Greeley, Colo.

5pm

University of Northern Colorado

7-3

104

Oklahoma Panhandle State University

8-3

Okla Panhandle St

Northern Colorado

104

Photo by: Dean Popejoy

12/11/2017 4:53:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

The freshman forward poured in 21 points to lead the Bears

By: Kurt Maddox, UNCBears.com

GREELEY, Colo.—The Northern Colorado Bears scored the first bucket of the game and never looked back, never trailing the Oklahoma Panhandle State Aggies as they rolled to a 104-53 route in their second straight Sunday evening affair in Bank of Colorado Arena. Five Bears scored in double figures and two others made it within a shot of joining them as UNC (7-3) rolled to its largest margin of victory in its Division I history.

How It Happened
Northern Colorado jumped out to an 11-4 lead within the opening three minutes and by the 16-minute mark, every starter had recorded a bucket. The Aggies' leading scorer, Jace Kerr, lived up to his reputation and pulled OPSU within four at 16-12 at the 15:18 mark before UNC locked down on defense.

UNC outscored OPSU 31-6 the rest of the half, including an impressive 20-0 in the last 5:30. In this timespan, OPSU shot 0-for-6 and UNC forced five turnovers. The Bears built a 56-21 lead at the half and Jalen Sanders topped his season and career high with 17 points on 8-of-10 shooting.

How impressive was the first half defensive performance? The Bears allowed just two Aggies to score, held them to 28% shooting as a team, recorded three steals and forced nine turnovers while only committing six fouls and giving up two free throws.

The second half was more of the same for UNC- dominating. The Bears extended their lead to 40 by the 15:27 mark and ballooned the advantage to 50 five minutes later. Head coach Jeff Linder then unloaded the bench as the starting five didn't see the floor for the last 13:57 of the contest. In all, 12 Bears saw at least 10 minutes of game action.

Northern Colorado finished with five players in double figures. Freshman Johnatan Reyes tied his career-high with eight points on 3-of-5 shooting including 2-of-3 from behind the arc.The Bears scored over 100 for the first time in the regular season since Southwest (N.M.) 127-81 to kick off the 2012-13 season.

Game Changer
Jalen Sanders topped the scoreboard for the first time in his career, scoring a career-high 21 points. Sanders nearly pulled off his second-career double-double by recording nine boards. His impressive stat line also included three steals, three assists, and one block.

Key Stat
The Bears entered the game shooting a disappointing 27% from 3-point percentage for the year, but they almost doubled that by going an impressive 18-of-34 (53%) for the game. UNC's total of 34 bombs was nine more than their season average attempts.

What They Said

Freshman Guard Jalen Sanders
On What His Role is
"I'm glad on how the stats came out. I just ran the floor and probably had 10 to fourteen fast-break points. Plus, my teammates were giving me the ball and looking ahead. I was just taking the open shots."

Redshirt Junior Guard Chaz Glotta
On What They Expected from OPSU
"Jace (Kerr) came out and was hitting everything. When he went out, he is a big part of their offense and their other players have to feed off him. The only other person who was really dangerous was Tyler Pate. Other than that, they don't have a lot of options because everyone feeds off their energy."

Glotta on being in rhythm
"I have been putting in a lot of extra work lately. I am trying to be a spark plug from the bench when things aren't really going our way. My teammates were finding me and running the offense in the way we are supposed to in a game and there is the result."

Head Coach Jeff Linder
Opening Statement
"Coming into the game, Oklahoma Panhandle was 8-2 and beat the number one NAIA Division I team, Texas Wesleyan who has a high-end major (NCAA) Division I transfer and a couple of mid-major transfers. Without their point guard DK Sumo, it kind of changes the dynamic of the team. He is a guy who is their second-leading scorer. Without him, the other guys had to do a little bit too much. For what the game plan was, our guy executed that to a T. They are a team that is very dangerous from the three and our goal was to have them attempt 15 or less and they got 18. I think we did a good job of keeping them off the 3-point line. We also kept them off the glass. Jaedon Whitfield is a guy who is average around 14 rebounds per game. We minimized second chance and we felt there was no way they could beat us with twos. To have our guys see the ball go in is good because what we will see on Wednesday in Denver is a defense that will really pack it in. They are going to try to bait us to shoot a lot of threes so to see the ball go in the basket was a big plus."

On Jalen Sanders
"He's a guy that I would say in recruiting you have to get lucky. He was really miss-evaluated by a lot of people. He doesn't play like a freshman. He surprised me in terms of his basketball I.Q. He doesn't play like a freshman or make freshman mistakes. He has a high level of concentration and that probably also goes a large part to on where he came from in high school. He came from a successful program that teaches the right things. He is like Jonah (Radebaugh) who is hard to keep off the floor because he just makes so many plays. He stuffs the stat sheet and is going to be a really good player for the next three years.

Record-Book Watch
Jordan Davis passed Tim Huskisson and Toby Moser to move into 19^th all-time in points scored in UNC history. Davis sits at fifth in points for UNC Division I history with 1,061 points on his career. He needs 134 more to pass Tate Unruh for fourth in Division I and two points to move into 18^th for UNC history.

Notable Stats

OPSU has the number one rebounder in NAIA Division I but held Jaedon Whitfield to three rebounds, 11 below his season average.
Every player who entered the game scored except Matej Drgon and every Bear pulled down at least one board. Sanders had nine and Anthony Johnson seven to lead the way while every starter recorded at least five rebounds.
On their 39 made buckets, UNC dished out 23 assists.
Northern Colorado did not waste their second-chance opportunities against Oklahoma Panhandle State. The Bears turned their 15 offensive rebounds into 20 points while only allowing OPSU to score two from their six offensive rebounds.

What's Next
Northern Colorado will finish their three-game homestand Wednesday when they host the University of Denver. Tickets for Wednesday's game are available on-line at UNCBears.com or at 970-351-4849 M-F Noon-5 p.m.

UNC will then head back out on the road for two games at Mountain West foes next week. The Bears will cross the northern border to play the Wyoming Cowboys in Laramie December 19. UNC Athletics and Alumni will host a watch party, featuring drink specials and prizes, at Cables for the game against the Cowboys. Northern Colorado will then visit Jordan Davis' hometown of Las Vegas to take on the Runnin' Rebels of UNLV December 22.

The Bears round out 2017 by opening Big Sky Conference play at home with a 7 pm tip December 29 versus Eastern Washington and an afternoon tip of 2 pm New Year's Eve against Idaho.