Men's basketball wins wild overtime thriller, 68-67, at Saint Martin's

February 12, 2013

University Relations

Jamie Foland
907-474-6807

Junior center Sergej Pucar (Belgrade, Serbia/Business administration) scored all 10 of his team's points in the final 2:13 of overtime and Alaska survived a desperation three-point attempt at the buzzer by Saint Martin's for a wild 68-67 Great Northwest Athletic Conference men's basketball victory Saturday night at Marcus Pavilion.

The Nanooks (13-8, 8-5 GNAC) swept the season series with the Saints (7-13, 3-9 GNAC) as they picked up a rare road win in Lacey, Wash., for the first time since Feb. 12, 2005, ending a seven-game losing skid on the road at SMU.

“When you sweep teams it really makes a difference in the standings and tie-breakers,” second-year head coach Mick Durham said. “All the sudden, we've been able to do that with a few teams. I'm happy we look like our old self and look fresher. We won the game Thursday, so had we lost Saturday it wouldn't be the end of the world to get a split but it's nice to come out with this win.”

Trailing 63-62, Pucar drained a three pointer from the left wing with 59 seconds to put the Nanooks up two. At the other end, Will Bond scored three of his game-high 22 points with a trey of his own to give a 65-64 lead to the Saints with 40 ticks on the clock.

Pucar kept at it as he produced an old-fashioned three-point play with the bucket and a foul on a made layup. He hit the free throw with 23 seconds left to give Alaska a 68-66 lead. With a chance to tie or win the game, Bond was fouled by junior guard Ronnie Baker (Vallejo, Calif./Communication) with only 4.6 to go. Bond made the front end free throw but missed the second and after an offensive rebound, Evan Coulter's three at the buzzer fell short, giving Alaska the road victory.

Pucar led the Nanooks with a team-best 21 points on 7-of-11 shooting to go with his six rebounds. Junior guard Pat Voeut (Bellingham, Wash./Communication) tallied 11 points while junior forward Andrew Kelly (Gilbert, Ariz./Justice) brought down a game- and career-high 16 rebounds. Three others scored at least eight points.

“We spread the floor a lot with the ball screen but we got into overtime and our guys did a great job getting it to down low,” Durham said. “At that point of the game, SMU had a tough time guarding him and fouled him a couple times. Then he steps out and hits a three and makes a three-point play the hard way. It was fun to watch and they were really excited for him after the game.”

Alaska shot 47 percent (24-51) for the game and converted on 77 percent (17-22) of its free throws while dominating the boards by a 42-31 margin. The Nanooks' bench outscored the Saints' reserves, 10-2.

Aside from Bond's game-high 22 in which he shot 7-of-10 from the field and 3-for-4 from beyond the arc, Roger O'Neill and Rei Jensen each posted double-doubles for Saint Martin's. O'Neill had 16 points and 10 rebounds while Jensen contributed 11 points and 10 boards, seven of which came on the offensive glass. Coulter had 11 points, three assists and two steals and Brady Bomber added four dimes and four steals.

SMU shot 37 percent from the floor but struggled from the charity stripe, connecting on just 65 percent (15-23) of its tries from the line. The Saints committed just four turnovers while forcing the Nanooks into 14 and they outscored the visitors 18-7 off the giveaways. The game saw eight lead changes and eight ties throughout.

Alaska opened the game shooting 6-of-7 from the field and got off to an early 14-4 lead four minutes into the contest. SMU jumped back in it as shots started to fall and trailing 19-9, it went on a 13-4 run to climb to within a point a 23-22 with 8:35 left. SMU took the lead at 27-25 but both squads went cold the final six minutes and went into the locker room tied at 28.

The Nanooks opened the second with five straight to lead 33-28 with 18:44 left. The game went back-and-forth as neither team could put together a big run to seize control. With the game squared at 44, Alaska scored six in a row, capped off by a Stefan Tica (Belgrade, Serbia/Business administration) layup with 8:31 to go to give the Nanooks their largest lead of the stanza at 50-44.

The Nanooks led 58-52 after a Baker put back with 3:40 to play but went 0-for-4 with one turnover after that to close regulation. The Saints didn't stop scoring, however, as a three pointer by O'Neill cut the deficit in half with 2:38 to play and after Jensen pick-pocketed Voeut, Bond hit a long-range three to tie it at 58 with 1:51 left. Alaska had the ball for the final shot but Voeut couldn't get one off before the buzzer sounded for overtime.

In Alaska's last three wins over the last nine days, it has outscored its opponents by a combined five points with one three-point win and a pair of one-point victories.

“Last week we had a close game against Northwest Nazarene and went a long time without a close game,” Durham said. “You need close games to get some experience in that situation and how we are going to handle things. All the sudden, three out of four are close games and we won all three. Guys have to make plays, have to make your free throws and have to do something solid on the defensive end. There are a lot of factors in winning close games.”

The Nanooks return to action next Saturday when they travel down to take on arch-rival Alaska Anchorage at 7 p.m. inside the Wells Fargo Sports Complex. The Seawolves (15-6, 8-5 GNAC) won 79-73 earlier Saturday at Western Oregon.

“It should be exciting,” Durham said. “We're looking forward to going to Anchorage and we're going with momentum. It doesn't get much better than that going in with a two-game win streak and feel like we're playing pretty well again.”