BURNABY, B.C. — The Simon Fraser Red Leafs did a pretty fair job of digging themselves out of an early hole Saturday night at home against Alaska Anchorage.
 
Yet rallying back from a game-opening 14-0 run by the visiting Seawolves (4-3) turned out to mere child's play compared to way the opposition key later turned to quicksand every time the Red Leafs (1-6) tried to score points in the paint on an evening which ended with the West Gym crowd witnessing a 71-49 win by the visitors.
 
SFU answered Anchorage's opening flurry with a 14-3 run of its own, pulling to within 17-14 just past the midway mark of the first half when Immanuel Oludele stroked a three-pointer.
 
Yet just as the Red Leafs — buoyed by Friday afternoon's 89-61 win over the visiting Alaska Nanooks — looked to continue their dominance, they were sunk by a deluge of offensive fouls in the key.
 
And when you can't score inside against a team like the Seawolves, for whatever reason, the outcome is not going to be positive because it means you're playing straight into their wheelhouse.
 
"It was just bad offence tonight," said Red Leafs head coach Steve Hanson, still absorbing the sting which comes when a 28-point victory (the program's third-largest game-winning margin since entering the NCAA in 2010-11) is followed just over 24 hours later by a 22-point loss.
 
"There were turnovers, and then I think they took four charges in the first half and that really got us out of… our guys didn't really want to drive to the paint after that. It does that to you," added Hanson.
 

 
The Seawolves are not the tallest team on the block, but they are wide and stocky where they need to be, and they clog and congest the lanes as easily as they breathe.
 
And on this night, Simon Fraser could simply not get its inside game going.

So when the points in the paint got to 16-2 in Anchorage's favour, it became obvious to everyone in the gym that on this night, the environment which existed when Simon Fraser went into the post was simply not a sustainable option.
 
"This team just packs the paint so we worked a lot today at (shoot-around) on reading the weak side," said Hanson of looking for space that UAA simply never yielded to their hosts. "We just didn't do a good job of it because they put a lot of help in the paint, and you've got to get the ball to that weak side."
 
Guards Tyson Gilbert (14 points) and Dillon Barrientos (12 points) led the way on offence for the winners, but it was as much the defensive toughness shown by 6-foot-7, 220-pound forward Sawyer Storms and a rotation of other similarly-minded teammates who wound up turning in impressively convincing performances in the paint.
 
"They are tough in the gaps," said Hanson. "Every time we'd drive, they were hacking at the ball. They do a good job of it. We tried to do the same but they did a good job."
 
With its inside options exhausted, a three-point attack which went 13-of-26 (50 per cent) the day before against the Nanooks never found its its inside-out rhythm and watered itself down to a meagre 4-of-18 (22.2 per cent).
 
Senior point guard David Penney (Guelph, Ont.), who broke the team's game-opening goose egg with a short jumper to make it 14-2 some 6:24 into the proceedings, led the Red Leafs with 15 points. Freshman guard Irish Coquia (Vancouver) added seven.
 

 
With its next four games all on the road, Hanson remained hopeful that the positive taste the team experienced in its win over the Alaska Nanooks on Friday would set a tone for the tough battle to make a substantial climb in the standings over its final 11 games.
 
"Absolutely," Hanson said. "I think there are a lot of teams we look forward to playing, even on the road. I think we've got to be a 10-8 or a 9-9 team to get that last playoff spot, and that is our goal.
 
"I said there's going to be some teams that fizzle out in the stretch and then some teams that get hot… and we need to be one of those hot teams."
 
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