CHENEY, Wash. – Eastern Washington displayed its scoring prowess in the second half after getting off to a slow start, pulling away to knock off North Dakota 102-80 in Big Sky men's basketball action Saturday at Reese Court.
UND (6-12, 2-5 BSC) led by six at halftime, but the Big Sky-leading Eagles (15-5, 6-1 BSC) shot 74 percent from the field in the second half to outscore the visitors 67-39. It was the first win in five tries for the Eagles in Big Sky play against UND.
“We played tremendous in the opening 20 minutes,” UND head coach Brian Jones said. “Unfortunately, we had some mental lapses in the second half and veered away from the game plan and that hurt us.
“We did a good job defensively in the first half, but (EWU) wins on the foul line and 3-point line and they got going from both in the second half.”
Senior Jaron Nash scored a season-high 24 points on 9-of-14 shooting for UND, who also got 16 points from Quinton Hooker and 13 off the bench from Lenny Antwi.
UND led by as many as nine points in the first half as Antwi and Nash each had 10 points. The visitors shot 53 percent from the field and scored the final six points to lead 41-35 at halftime.
EWU shot only 37 percent in those opening 20 minutes, but it was a different story in the second half. Junior guard Tyler Harvey had 16 of his game-high 26 points in the second half as his squad made 23-of-31 shots from the field. The nation's leading scorer made a pair of 3-pointers in the opening minutes after halftime to help give the Eagles the lead for good.
The Eagles also got a boost from forward Ognjen Miljkovic after the break as he scored all 18 of his points. Freshman Bogdan Bliznyuk added a career-high 25 points off the bench for EWU.
Senior guard Drew Brandon was two rebounds shy of a triple-double, scoring 11 points and dishing out 13 assists for the home team. Several of those assists set up 3-pointers for the Big Sky's top-shooting team and the Eagles went 24-for-28 from the foul line for the game.
After going 2-for-9 in the opening 20 minutes, EWU knocked down 8-of-12 from deep to put the game away. Bliznyuk and Miljkovic each made three for the Eagles.
Hooker finished 6-for-12 from the field with a career-high eight rebounds and seven assists. UND only made it to the free throw stripe 10 times, but made eight of those with Nash leading the way (6-for-7).
UND will return home to play Weber State on Thursday. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. CT from the Betty Engelstad Sioux Center.
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