CEDAR CITY, Utah (January 16, 2020) – Thursday night's tilt between the Northern Arizona men's basketball team and Southern Utah was yet another close one, but the 75-72 victory went in favor of the Lumberjacks in the America First Event Center behind a season-high 19 points from junior
Bernie Andre. NAU improved to 8-7 overall and 4-2 in conference play with the victory, its first on the road this season in league play.
"We went into the locker room and told ourselves, 'let's stick to what we do,'" said interim head coach
Shane Burcar. "We had to grind our teeth a little harder to keep our man in front of us. I give credit to our guys. We were in a hostile environment and we battled. We talk about being tough and tonight it was obvious to the eye that our guys were tough and battled together."
The Lumberjacks trailed at halftime, 45-36, with the Thunderbirds shooting 59.3 percent in the first half. But NAU's offense turned around with the Lumberjacks shooting 58.3 percent in the second half, while their defense locked down on the Thunderbirds' Cameron Oluyitan. After Oluyitan, Southern Utah's second-leading scorer, scored 22 points in the first half, NAU kept him completely out of the scoring column in the second half.
"We talk about being truly tough and one of the things with being truly tough is responding to adversity," said sophomore
Cameron Shelton. "They came out and hit big shots and we stuck to our principles, and our game plan, and picked up the intensity defensive. We got big stops in the second half and that ultimately led us to victory."
Although Southern Utah still shot 54.3 percent for the game, besting NAU's mark of 44.6 percent, the Lumberjacks won a critical area in the game – turnovers. NAU turned the ball over just eight times to the 17 by Southern Utah, which resulted in NAU outscoring Southern Utah, 19-8, in points off miscues.
NAU equaled its season-high of 12 steals with Shelton setting a new career-high with four thefts. Junior
Cameron Satterwhite totaled three steals and senior
Chris Bowling had two off the bench.
Andre's season-high scoring output came on 6-for-11 shooting, including a career-best 4-for-5 showing from long distance. Shelton bounced back from his lowest scoring game of the season last Saturday to match Andre's 19 points in his best offensive game in over a month. Shelton was a career-best 8-for-11 at the charity stripe.
Sophomore
Luke Avdalovic was the driving force behind NAU's 8-1 game-opening run with six points in the first four minutes of the game. The Lumberjacks' early advantage was erased by a 14-0 Thunderbird run that put NAU behind, 19-10, with nine minutes left in the first half.
NAU got back to 21-20 on a layup by senior
Brooks DeBisschop, who scored 12 points in the game, to cap a 7-0 run, but four Southern Utah triples in the final 2:21 of the first half propelled the Thunderbirds to their nine-point halftime lead.
The Lumberjacks evened the score at 53-53, courtesy of a trey by Andre, with 12:55 to play on the heels of an 11-2 NAU run. NAU finally took the lead, for good, three minutes later on another layup by DeBisschop and Satterwhite's thunderous dunk in transition made it a 62-57 game with 8:07 remaining.
Southern Utah got within a single point on four occasions the rest of the game, but NAU answered with a score on the very next possession each time. Southern Utah had an opportunity for a game-tying three at the buzzer, but it was off the mark to seal NAU's first win in Cedar City in four years.
"We have to continue to get better," Burcar said. "We talked today about effort and execution and I was impressed with our guys. The next thing is these games have to be won by eight to 10 points and as we continue to build it will be by doing what winning teams do."
Nine of NAU's 12 steals were recorded after halftime as the Lumberjacks forced 11 total Thunderbird turnovers in the second half resulting in a plus-eight point margin off turnovers. NAU outscored Southern Utah by 12 in the second half altogether.
The Lumberjacks aim to complete the undefeated road trip at Northern Colorado on Saturday with tip-off set for 2 p.m. in Greeley, Colo.
