Fairbanks, AK - The Simon Fraser University men's basketball team kicked off 2014 and their road trip through Alaska with a 67-58 loss to the University of Alaska Fairbanks Nanooks on Thursday night.

The Clan led early and kept it close throughout but could not best the home side.

"We turned the ball over too much against their zone and were sloppy after the Christmas break," said Head Coach James Blake. "We played their game and were not able to get out in transition. The effort and heart were there but too many sloppy plays hurt our productivity."

Taylor Dunn (Vancouver, WA) and Sango Niang (Paris, France) led Simon Fraser with 15 and 10 points respectively.

Ibrahim Appiah (Montreal, QC), David Gebru (Seattle, WA) and Elijah Matthews (Washington, DC) followed with nine points each.

Appiah also led the team in rebounds with nine while Niang and Gebru had seven each while Appiah also led the team in assists with five.

As a team the Clan outshot the home side 39 percent to 33 and also outrebounded the Nanooks 43-28.

Free throws were a major difference in the contest as the Nanooks sunk 21 of 27 shots from the charity stripe while SFU made eight in just 14 trips to the line.

The home side also capitalized on turnovers, scoring 22 points off of turnovers compared to six for the Clan.

Ronnie Baker and Joe Slocum tied for the Alaska Fairbanks team lead in points with 14 each while Andrew Kelly led his team with eight rebounds and Slocum led his team with three assists.

Matthews opened the scoring to give the Clan a 3-0 thanks to his three pointer early on.

After the Nanooks got on the board with a layup Appiah would hit a three and Matthews would hit another to make it 9-2 for the Clan.

The early seven point lead would prove to be the Clan's biggest of the contest as Alaska Fairbanks went on a 12-5 run to knot the score at 14.

With the score 24-21 in favour of Alaska Fairbanks the home team closed the half on a 10-3 run to expand their lead to 10 heading into the locker rooms, 34-24.

In the second half, the Clan came out on fire closing the gap to three.

Simon Fraser scored 10 of the first 13 points of the half to make it 37-34 for the home side but that was as close as SFU would get, battling down the stretch but losing by nine.

With the loss, the Clan's record drops to 7-4 on the 2013-14 season and 0-3 in Great Northwest Athletic Conference play.

SFU will wrap up their road trip to Alaska on Saturday against the 23rd ranked team in NCAA Division II, the Alaska Anchorage Seawolves.

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