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University of Nebraska - Kearney Athletics

RJ pair
Corbey R. Dorsey
60
Neb.-Kearney UNKMBB 12-6,6-3 MIAA
65
Winner Northwest Mo. St. NMSU 17-1,7-1 MIAA
Neb.-Kearney UNKMBB
12-6,6-3 MIAA
60
Final
65
Northwest Mo. St. NMSU
17-1,7-1 MIAA
Winner
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 F
Neb.-Kearney UNKMBB 27 33 60
Northwest Mo. St. NMSU 34 31 65

Game Recap: Men's Basketball |

Lopers Take Champs to the Wire, Fall 65-60

Kearney, Neb. – Junior forward Ryan Hawkins posted a double double and redshirt freshman guard Luke Waters had an important 13 points to help No. 2 Northwest Missouri State survive Nebraska-Kearney, 65-60, Thursday night in Maryville.

The Bearcats (17-1, 7-1) win a ninth straight game and improve to 117-6 since the start of the 2016-17 season. That includes a 56-2 mark in Bearcat Arena and a current 27-game win streak. Northwest, with a win Saturday over Fort Hays (7-10, 1-8), will be the nation's number one team next week. Former MIAA member Southwest Baptist upset Bellarmine (Ky.), 79-74, tonight in Louisville. 

Seeing a four-game win streak come to an end, UNK (12-6, 6-3) took a haymaker early on from a NW squad that fell 69-63 at Duke in an exhibition game back in November. The 'Cats sunk nine of its first 12 shots, including four triples, to jet out to leads of 14-6, 25-8 and 33-14. Kyle Juhl

However, the Lopers closed the half on a 13-1 run and kept the deficit under 11 points after the break. Chipping away throughout the final 20 minutes, UNK had a chance to send the game into overtime but a contested three by Utah junior Jake Walker from the right wing misfired with nine seconds left and so did a three from the right corner by Iowa senior Kyle Juhl with less than a second remaining. Hawkins capped a 24-point, 12-rebound night by hitting two free throws with four tenths of a second left on the clock. 

"I'm proud of our guys. Early on it didn't look good but we were able to settle in and the deficit was workable by halftime. Second half we kept chipping away, chipping away, had some guys step up and hit some shots," said Loper head coach Kevin Lofton. "Defensively they are stingy. At times they made us look bad but our guys hung in there and we were able to get some things to work."

Shooting a solid 46% (24 of 52) from the field and out scoring NW 33-31 in the second half, UNK trailed 39-37 with 17:06 to play. While the 'Cats led by double digits nine minutes later, the Lopers came back once more with a triple by Juhl making it 63-60 with only 32 seconds remaining. The 'Cats then missed the front end of a one-and-one to set up the frantic final nine seconds.

"Against Missouri Southern, horrible first half, good second half. We built on that. We're going to have to do the same thing here," Lofton said.

Having two 40-point games this year, Hawkins was 9 of 17 (4 of 7 threes) from the field with 10 of his boards coming on the defensive end. One of three starters to go all 40 minutes, he also had four steals, two assists and a block. Next Waters went for 13 on 5 of 7 shooting; he came in averaging 6.1 points per game. And junior guard Daric Laing recorded just his 17th bucket of the year with 6:08 left to make it 55-49.

"Their length, athleticism, toughness got us out of sorts (early on). We weren't setting the kinds of ball screens which we had been setting. They were blowing it up and pushing us off it. That's their physicality," Lofton said. "At other times we held the ball and it didn't move the way it had been. We also had some guys pressing … it's kind of a big game, big situation."

Northwest star guards Trevor Hudgins and Diego Bernard were a bit off, Hudgins going 2 of 9 from the field (1 of 5 threes) and Bernard having five turnovers and missing three free throws. However they still combined for 15 points, 10 assists, seven boards, five steals and some key late plays. As a team the 'Cats made 25 of 50 shots and tallied 17 of its points off 13 Loper turnovers.

For UNK Juhl and Bellevue senior forward AJ Jackson had 16 apiece with Walker adding 11. Jackson made 7 of 11 shots, Juhl was 4 of 8 from behind the arc with Walker going 5 of 10 from the floor. Juhl is now up to 152 career made threes, just two behind Drake Beranek (2007-09) for 10th place on UNK's all-time list. Finally Texas junior guard RJ Pair had nine points and four dimes off the bench.

"Kyle getting going was a spark. It's really nice to see him follow up the game he had Saturday with the game he had today. And he's going to half to keep doing that," Lofton said. "They lead the nation in three point shooting and you go to that (2-3 zone) thinking 'oh boy here we go.' But they missed a couple shots, didn't execute on a couple of plays and we were able to get the rebound and hang in there offensively. It helped us but we probably went to the well one too many times with it in the second half."

The Lopers head over to St. Joseph on Saturday afternoon to take on a Griffons squad (8-11, 4-4) that is now 6-0 at home after a 79-63 thrashing of Fort Hays State tonight.
 
 
 
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