GRAND FORKS, N.D., March 9 -
A.J. Hess scored 16 points
to lead three Thunderbirds in double figures but North Dakota held
Jackson
Stevenett to seven points and in taking a 68-61 win in the regular season
finale for both teams Saturday afternoon.
Stevenett, who came into the game averaging 18.1 points per
game, 19.9 in conference games, hit just two of 15 field goal attempts in
seeing his streak of 23 consecutive games in double figures come to an end. He did, however, co-lead the team with
nine rebounds, along with Jaren Jeffery, who posted a career-high.
SUU dipped to 11-18 overall and 8-12 in Big Sky play with
the loss while UND improved to 12-8 in conference play and evened its record at
15-15 overall.
The Thunderbirds now must wait to see what happens in the
rest of the Big Sky to see if they qualify for next week's tournament. SUU
needs Montana to beat Northern Arizona and have Weber State defeat Eastern
Washington to guarantee a spot.
Southern Utah struggled from the field, making just 7-of-31
shots in the first half and 21-of-66 overall and North Dakota wasn't much
better, connecting on 20-of-56 shots.
"They were physical with [Stevenett] but it's nothing he
hasn't seen all year," SUU Coach Nick Robinson said. "He's been bodied against
the best defenders all year. He scored 29 in the first game (at Gonzaga) and
everybody's taken notice since that time. He had a couple of shots that
normally go down for him, but he's bound to have an off night once in a while,
I just wish it hadn't been tonight."
Damon Heuir finished with 12 points while Cal Hanks had 10
points and eight rebounds and Chris Nsenki dished out a career-high five
assists for the Thunderbirds.
"Offensively we struggled tonight across the board,"
Robinson pointed out. "We shot 32 percent as a team and the ball just didn't go
down for us. North Dakota had a lot of emotion on senior night and a lot of
credit goes to them. They played extremely hard, got some timely turnovers,
some timely rebounds and did a nice job executing in transition off our
turnovers."
"For us it was a good effort," Robinson noted. "We've played
three games in a week with an early game today. Our guys came ready to play and
we got some gutsy efforts from a lot of guys, we just didn't have shots go
down, unfortunately."
"I thought our defensive effort was pretty good, we got nine
steals, the most we've had all year and they didn't shoot a very good
percentage either," he added.
Both teams weathered lengthy scoreless droughts in the first
half. After taking a 5-2 lead SUU went from the 16:49 mark until 12:40 without
a basket, allowing UND go to up 10-5 before Jaren Jeffery finally scored to end
the dry spell.
Jamal Webb hit two free throws to stake UND to a 12-7 lead
but SUU then held North Dakota scoreless for nearly five minutes and built a
14-12 advantage on an A.J. Hess 3-pointer. UND got back on the board with 7:42 remaining in the period
when Webb hit a three and went on to take a 28-24 lead at halftime.
Hess hit a jumper to open the second half then Jeffery
scored inside to tie the game at 28-28 but the Thunderbirds couldn't take a
lead in the second half. Each team hit one of two free throws, then Lenny Antwi
hit a 3-pointer to give UND a 32-29 lead.
North Dakota slowly pulled away, building a 47-37 lad on a
Josh Schuler 3-pointer and eventually built a 13 point advantage but the
Thunderbirds rallied, getting within 57-52 on a 7-0 run that included a jumper
by Cal Hanks, a Hess three and a jumper by Jayson Cheesman with 2:44 to go.
The Thunderbirds misfired on two of their next three shot
attempts, however, and North Dakota got back-to-back jumpers from Webb, then
hit 4-of-6 free throws to push the advantage to 65-54 with 42 seconds to go.
Hess hit a three and Jeffery a short jumper to pull SUU back within seven with
20 seconds to play but the Thunderbirds simply ran out of time.
Webb led UND with 19 points, nine rebounds and rive assists,
while Schuler finished with 16 points and Troy Huff scored 15 points.
-- SUU --
