TOURNAMENT CENTRAL
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (March 7, 2021) – The Northern Arizona men's basketball team's Cinderella run towards the Big Sky Championship begins on Wednesday with a first round matchup against the No. 7 seed Portland State at 12 p.m. at Idaho Central Arena in Boise, Idaho. The game will be streamed on Pluto TV Channel 1050 and can be heard on the Lumberjack Radio Network.
The winner of Wednesday's first round game will advance to face No. 2 seed Eastern Washington on Thursday at 5 p.m. in the Big Sky quarterfinals. The semifinals will be played on Friday and the championship game, to be aired on ESPNU, will tip-off at 6 p.m. on Saturday.
The Lumberjacks head into the conference tournament as the No. 10 seed, fresh off a bye week. The bye week was used to refine some areas on the court, and make up for the two weeks lost between games at the beginning of February due to COVID-19 protocols.
"We reenergized mentally and physically," said head coach
Shane Burcar. "The whole thing is go to have success at the Big Sky Tournament. We got back to the basics and tried to keep things as simple as possible and the guys' attitudes have been unbelievable. We have just not been able to get into a flow and I really believe in developing a team throughout a season. When Wednesday comes, we're going to do everything we can try to finish this season the right way."
Following its return to competition from the shutdown, NAU dropped four straight to close out the regular season, including two losses to eventual Big Sky regular season champion Southern Utah on Feb. 24 and 26. The Lumberjacks pushed the Thunderbirds in an 85-80 loss in Cedar City, Utah in the first game, before falling to Southern Utah in the regular season finale at home, 92-62.
Junior
Cameron Shelton, a likely all-conference selection when the All-Big Sky teams are announced on Monday, concluded the regular season with team-high averages of 20.2 points, 6.0 rebounds, 4.1 assists and 1.5 steals per game. He is one of two players in the conference, alongside his counterpart on Wednesday in Portland State's James Scott, to lead their respective teams in all four categories.
Shelton ranks 24th in the country with a Big Sky leading 20.2 points per game and has scored in double-figures in all but two games this season. He also has logged at least 20 points, five rebounds and four assists in 10 of 20 games.
The star of the final regular season series was redshirt junior
Nik Mains, who reset his career-high in points twice against the Thunderbirds. Mains capped the regular season with 19 points versus Southern Utah, two days after hitting six threes on his way to a career-high, at the time, 18 points.
Mains' strong finish was the punctuation mark of a strong conference-only campaign in which he was the Lumberjacks' leading scorer at 10.3 points per game. Mains shot 46.3 percent from three-point range in 13 Big Sky games.
Despite only shooting 34 percent as a team from long distance overall this season, NAU was one of the Big Sky's top three-point shooting teams in conference play, ranking third at 38.1 percent. Behind Mains' clip, redshirt junior
Luke Avdalovic, who moved into sixth all-time in school history in career threes made in the regular season finale, shot 44.4 percent. Redshirt sophomore
Keith Haymon (36.4 percent) and Shelton (34 percent) also were effective from deep in 14 league games.
While Shelton is averaging 17.5 points per game in his career versus Portland State, Avdalovic has been a thorn to the Vikings' side. In four career games against the Vikings, Avdalovic is averaging 17.3 points per game –
his highest career scoring average versus a Big Sky opponent – on 60 percent (24-of-40) shooting overall and a scorching 58.1 percent (18-of-31) from three-point range. In last season's 84-82 home victory on Jan. 25, 2020, Avdalovic netted a career-high 25 points, while draining 7-of-11 threes. Two of Avdalovic's five career 20-point games have come at mercy of the Vikings, and he has hit four or more treys in three of four contests.
NAU and Portland State will actually be meeting for the first time this season after their season series scheduled for Feb. 11 and 13 in Flagstaff was canceled due to COVID-19 protocols within the Lumberjack program. Wednesday will mark the fifth all-time Big Sky Tournament meeting between the two schools with Portland State winning the two most recent matchups in 2008 and 2017 after NAU won the first two in 1999 and 2000. In the first round of the 2017 tournament in Reno, Nev., the Vikings defeated the Lumberjacks, 80-67.
The Vikings lead the all-time series, 28-25, and both teams split the season series last year on their home courts.
Portland State concluded the regular season with two home losses to Southern Utah and wound up as the conference tournament's No. 7 seed as a result of a tiebreaker over Northern Colorado. The Thunderbirds clinched the regular season title with a victories by the score of 68-58 and 73-54 over the Vikings on Thursday and Saturday. With the two losses, the Vikings take a 9-12 overall record and 6-8 conference mark into the conference tournament.
Scott leads the Vikings, who closed the season by winning four of their last seven Big Sky games after a 2-5 start to conference play, with averages of 13.6 points, 5.0 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 1.5 steals per game. In conference games, Scott averaged 15.5 points per game while shooting 35.7 percent behind the arc. Although he averaged just 4.3 points per game in conference play, Jacob Eyman is the Big Sky's premier shot blocker averaging 1.6 per game in Big Sky action.
Portland State prides itself on its defense, ranking second in scoring defense in all games (66.0) and conference games (65.4). A lot of that is due to the Vikings ranking 22nd in the country in turnovers forced per game (16.2) and 35th in steals per game (8.2). On the offensive glass, the Vikings are also one of the nation's leading teams averaging the 12th-most o-boards per game at 13.2.
"I truly don't believe we're a 10 seed," Burcar said. "The truth is it's a second season. It's a chance to have a little March Madness. That's why the name has come about."
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