By: Jenessa Gladstone
Box Score
Burnaby, BC – After a tough loss in the closing minute on Thursday night the Simon Fraser University men's basketball rebounded to defeat the third place team in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, University of Alaska Fairbanks Nanooks, 70-60 on Saturday.
"We worked on a lot of defence, and a lot of preparation since falling to the Seawolves by one on Thursday," said guard Justin Cole (Los Angeles, CA). "We knew we had to bounce back and start hard defensively and that was carried out through the rest of the game."
Cole earned 12 points in the win while adding four assists and two steals.
Scoring was spread across the board as five Clan members hit double-digits.
Sango Niang (Paris, France) led the team with 15 points and Ibrahim Appiah (Montreal, QC) earned 13, Dillon Hamilton (Vancouver, BC) chipped in 11 while Taylor Dunn (Vancouver, WA) added 10 including some crucial free throws late in the game.
Appiah also led the team in rebounds, grabbing 12 to earn his second straight double double.
Andrew Kelly topped the Nanooks scoring effort with 14 points. Joe Slocum narrowly followed with 13 of his own.
SFU worked the boards throughout the game, earning 27 rebounds to UAF's 20.
The battle proved to be a back and forth fight as the lead changed 12 times over the course of the night.
Neither team could build more than a one possession lead during the first twenty minutes of play.
With 18:33 to go in the first half, a converted layup by Ronnie Baker led to an 8-2 Nanooks run bringing the scoring to 10-4.
The six point difference would be UAF's largest lead of the night.
The teams continued to trade baskets over the remainder of the half as neither could build a solid cushion to hold the lead.
A foul committed by Hamilton with nine seconds to go until the break sent Nanook Stefan Tica to the free-throw line. After converting one of two free-throw shots, UAF took a 31-30 lead into halftime.
Just over two minutes into the second half, a layup from Gebru in the paint gave SFU a one point edge, 34-33.
The Nanooks continued to test the Clan, eventually earning the lead two more times.
However, the home team closed the game on a 12-2 run, resulting in the 10 point victory.
SFU will return to the West Gym on Saturday, February 8 when they face their cross border rivals the Western Washington University Vikings at 7:00 p.m.
"We'll focus on ball movement, boxing out and defence (against Western Washington). They're quite bigger than us at all our positions and very athletic. We just need to box out and defend so we can get open shots," finished Cole.
