GRAND FORKS, N.D. – The University of North Dakota men's basketball team held off Houston Baptist to register a 66-62 victory over the Huskies in Great West Conference play Saturday at the Betty Engelstad Sioux Center.
Sophomores
Aaron Anderson (Brooklyn Park, Minn.) and
Jamal Webb (Buffalo, N.Y.) both scored 15 points to pace the Fighting Sioux (13-14), who evened their league mark at 4-4.
UND raced out to a 16-2 lead in the opening three and a half minutes of the game behind a 6-for-7 start from the floor, but the Huskies surged back, and coupled with a dismal stretch of free-throw shooting by the home team, made things interesting down the stretch.
The hot start from the floor did not carry over to the charity stripe as the Sioux opened the contest converting just two of their first 20 attempts before Anderson made six in a row to seal the victory in the final two minutes.
“I have never seen anything like that,” UND head coach
Brian Jones said of his team's early struggles from the charity stripe. "But, (you have to) give our guys credit. They made them down the stretch when it counted.
“And, as weird as it seems, this is the type of game that can still generate a lot of momentum for us. We only played poorly in one area and that was foul shooting. We make 70 percent of them, we win this game by 15.”
After the fast start by UND, Houston Baptist settled in thanks primarily to the play of reserve forward Marcus Davis. He had 10 first-half points and pulled his team within five points at one point before the break.
The Sioux made their first four 3-pointers of the game, but missed on their next six attempts until Webb connected on a desperation heave just inside the halfcourt stripe as the first-half buzzer sounded. That connection put UND ahead 40-31 at halftime and gave the team some momentum back going into the locker room.
A dunk by sophomore
Troy Huff (Milwaukee, Wis.) on the opening possession of the second half gave UND what would be its only double-figure lead the rest of the way.
After turning the ball over only six times in the first 20 minutes, UND committed 10 miscues after the break and that helped HBU slowly get back in it. Davis, who finished with a game-high 22 points, went on a personal 10-2 run midway through the half to give the Huskies their first lead of the game at 51-50.
But, that deficit was quickly overcome thanks to a 3-pointer by sophomore
Josh Schuler (Urbana, Ohio). After a pair of free throws tied the game at 53-53, Schuler would come up with another big shot as this time a 10-foot jumper put UND in the lead for good.
Schuler would made one more big play down the stretch as he found classmate
Brandon Brekke (East Grand Forks, Minn.) for an easy layup that made it a five-point advantage with just under 90 seconds to play.
Huff came up with a big block on the ensuing possession and that is when the free throws finally started to fall for the home team. Anderson and Huff went 6-for-8 in the final 55 seconds to seal the victory.
“(HBU) kept coming and coming and coming, so give them credit,” Jones added. “That showed a lot of character, but in the final four-minute game we made some big-time plays and Aaron made some huge free throws.”
UND finished the game shooting 55.6 percent from the field (25-for-45) and 50 percent from 3-point range (7-for-14), while holding the Huskies to just 42.9 percent (24-for-56) from the field and 27.3 percent (3-for-11) from 3-point territory.
The Sioux will face Texas-Pan American in a rare Monday night contest. The Broncs are one-game ahead of the Sioux in the GWC standings as both teams are jockeying for seeding at the league tournament, which will be held in Chicago on March 8-10.
– UND –
