MOSCOW, Idaho (March 1, 2018) – Northern Arizona held a 34-30 lead with 14:38 left in the second half but Idaho outscored the Lumberjacks 36-18 the rest of the way to close out a 66-52 victory on Thursday night at the Cowan Spectrum.
Idaho reeled off a 25-5 run over a 9:20 stretch of the second half and held Northern Arizona without a field goal for a span of 8:55 during the decisive second half.
"We just held a really good offensive ball club to 66 points, the game should have come down to the wire," NAU head coach
Jack Murphy said.
The loss marked NAU's 13
th consecutive loss to the Vandals in Moscow and dropped its overall record on the season to 5-25 and 2-15 in Big Sky play. Idaho clinches an opening round bye in next week's 2018 Big Sky Conference Championship with the victory and moves to 21-8 and 13-4 in league action.
Shooting struggles plagued the Lumberjacks from the outset as they opened the game by making just one of their first 13 shot attempts allowing the Vandals to mount a seven-point lead in the first half.
NAU battled back in the back end of the opening half as they rebounded to make eight of its final 18 field goal attempts before halftime. Sophomore
JoJo Anderson capped off a five-point burst by the Lumberjacks over the final 12 seconds of the first half with a buzzer-beating three pointer to give NAU a 25-24 edge heading into intermission.
Anderson, who finished with 11 points, scored nine over the final 2:34 of the first half and finished a perfect 6-of-6 from the free throw line.
Idaho's Brayon Blake led the Vandals with 22 points and 14 rebounds, while shooting 7-of-14 from the field on a night that saw two of its starters foul out, including leading scorer Victor Sanders, who entered with the Big Sky's fourth-best scoring average at 18.8 ppg. Sanders tallied 12 points before being sent off following his fifth foul with 5:18 left in the contest.
The Lumberjacks close out the regular season on Saturday afternoon with a game at Eastern Washington which will tip at 3 p.m. MST from Reese Court in Cheney, Wash.
The 'Jacks-Eagles contest will be aired on the Lumberjack Radio Network beginning with the pregame show at 2:30 p.m. MST and streamed live on PlutoTV (channel 234).
