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Northern State shot 60.8% from the field and put up 41 points in the first half en route to a 86-77 win at the University of Jamestown on Saturday, Jan. 3.
The Wolves are now 5-9 overall and 5-3 in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference. Jamestown is 7-7 and 5-3 in league play.
Northern scored the first dozen points, capped by a Nelson Reynolds three-pointer just 5:31 into the game.
Josh Book, who scored a team-high 19 points, gave the Wolves a 14-point lead on a driving layup with 6:07 to go in the half. James Glenn’s layup with 3:48 to go before halftime gave Northern its biggest lead at 36-20.
Jamestown opened the second half with a 16-4 run and cut the Wolves’ lead to 45-42 with 14:41 left. But Simon Akena scored five points during a 10-2 run that gave NSU a 55-44 lead with about 12 minutes left in the game.
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Akena finished with 17 points, as did Marshawn Smith.
Next up for the Wolves are NSIC road games on Friday, Jan. 9 at Wayne State and Saturday, Jan. 10 at Augustana University in Sioux Falls.
Cold second-half stretch sinks Northern against No. 15 Back Hills State
The Northern State men’s basketball team couldn’t score enough down the stretch and fell to No. 15 Black Hills State 77-70 on Thursday, Jan. 1 at Wachs Arena.
Northern State’s Tobi Obiora lays in two of his 13 points against No. 15 Black Hills State Thursday, Jan. 1 at Wachs Arena. The Wolves dropped the contest 77-70. Aberdeen Insider photo by Robb Garofalo.
“Black Hills State is a really good basketball team that returns a lot of guys and has guys who can score,” said Northern head coach Matt Wilber. “We were there, competed and won a lot of possessions, but Black Hills State has that record for a reason. They don’t make a lot of mistakes, and you have to go beat ’em and we didn’t get there.”
Northern trailed 46-41 at the break and fell behind by seven twice early in the second half before trimming the deficit to one, 53-52, on a layup by Benjamin Bowen with 16:08 to play.
Then, with 13:24 left, Tobi Obiora’s layup tied the game at 57.
Shortly thereafter, Ty Rogers scored to tie the game at 59 before the Wolves offense faltered in crunch time.
Northern didn’t score for about six and a half minutes as the Yellow Jackets took control. Blake Volmer’s layup made it 67-59 with 6:08 to play, and the Wolves got no closer than five the rest of the way.
Wilber said the Northern’s defense did a good job of holding BHSU’s leading scorer Cam Lowe to 13 points. He averages 17 per game.
But Lowe’s teammate Jaeton Hackley picked up the slack, tossing in a team-high 22 points, including back-to-back layups during the Yellow Jackets’ decisive run.
“Hackley really got us in one particular action that’s really hard to guard unless you’re gonna just flat-out double it. He just got a lot done getting into the lane and to the rim,” Wilber said.
Wilber and Glenn agreed that the shots taken during NSU’s late dry spell weren’t within the flow of the offense.
“Our mindset is to pass up a good shot for a great shot, and I think we did that early, coming out of the locker room in the second half. But then, after (Black Hills) hit some shots … we kind of got into that, ‘I wanna get the game back in one possession,’ and you can’t do that,” said Glenn, who finished with 13 points. “We got a little momentum and we kind of got trigger-happy and thought every shot is going to fall, but that got us out of how we know we need to play.”
Northern State’s James Glenn drives past Black Hills State’s Jackson Seale and scores two of his 13 points Thursday, Jan. 1 inside Wachs Arena. The 15th-ranked Yellow Jackets earned with a 77-70 victory. Aberdeen Insider photo by Robb Garofalo.
The teams traded buckets early on with Northern grabbing a 13-10 edge on a pair of free throws by Josh Book, who finished with 22 points and a game-high five assists.
“Josh just continues to get better as a point guard, and, as you saw today, more shots are going in,” Wilber said. “He’s a tough guard, and this game, I think, is indicative of what he can become.”
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Tobi Obiora added 13 points and eight rebounds for the Wolves. He scored 10 of his points in the first half as he continues to recover from a groin injury that’s hampered him so far this season.
“I was pressing a little too much in the second half and was a little gassed, and didn’t help my teammates like I want,” Obiora said. “I feel better every day, but still not 100%, but I’m getting closer. My teammates did a good job of finding me when I was open in the first half and I was able to finish.”
