GRAND FORKS, N.D. – Senior Troy Huff scored 19 of his game-high 24 points in the second half as North Dakota pulled away late to record an 83-73 victory over Portland State in Big Sky play Thursday. The Milwaukee native has now scored more than 1,000 points over the last two seasons since UND moved to its new league.
Classmates Aaron Anderson and Josh Schuler added 12 and 11 points, respectively, to give UND (13-14, 10-7 Big Sky) a season split with the Vikings (13-13, 8-9 Big Sky).
In the first meeting with PSU, which was a 70-68 setback earlier this month, UND committed 18 turnovers and the Vikings scored 22 points off of those miscues, but it was a different story this time around. UND only turned it over eight times and turned 16 Portland State turnovers into 19 key points.
“We valued the basketball much better than we did at their place,” UND head coach Brian Jones said. “They are notorious for being a good second half team and we got sloppy with the ball in the first meeting after halftime, but tonight we took care of it and we able to come away with a big win.”
Andre Winston led the visitors with 20 points and pulled his team within five points with just over six minutes to play on a layup, but Huff took over the game at that point, getting a putback then throwing down a reverse jam that brought the home crowd to its feet.
Huff's back-to-back buckets sparked a decisive 12-2 run that pushed UND's lead back to double digits. Senior Jamal Webb, who had nine points and five assists, delivered his own one-handed dunk to cap the run and give his squad a nice start to its three-game homestand.
Huff went 5-for-7 from field and 8-for-9 from the stripe in the second half to help UND put up 51 points after the break. The home team shot 55 percent in the stanza (17-for-31), but the Vikings kept hanging around by knocking down 58 percent of their shots.
PSU big man Kyle Richardson had 19 points and a game-high 14 rebounds to post a double-double for the visitors, who had won their first two on a four-game Big Sky road trip. He went 9-for-13 from the field and added five blocks, but UND would get stops down the stretch to preserve the win.
Richardson's dominance on the glass helped his team hold a slight 34-33 edge in rebounding. Huff led UND with eight boards and he also equaled his season-high with five steals.
In the first half, UND went on a 9-0 spurt after PSU had tied the score at 7-7 to give the home team its largest advantage of the half. Richardson would net let the Green and White pull away though as the Vikings chipped away at the deficit getting it all the way down to a point at 22-21 with 5:37 on the clock.
UND would quickly extend its advantage back to seven thanks to a 10-4 run that included 3-pointers by Schuler and Huff. Richardson would end the half with a dunk to make it a 32-27 halftime score.
UND will return to action on Saturday and celebrate the careers of its seven seniors in a special pre-game ceremony. Tipoff against Eastern Washington is set for 2 p.m. CT.
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