Northern Colorado Wins Tight Contest Over Sacramento State, Advance to Play Southern Utah
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BOISE, Idaho (March 10, 2021) -- The No. 8 seeded Northern Colorado Bears secured a 90-83 victory over the No. 9 seeded Sacramento State Hornets on Wednesday morning inside Idaho Central Arena, earning the right to play the top-seeded Southern Utah Thunderbirds on Thursday in the quarterfinals of the Big Sky Conference Championship Tournament.
“This time of year it’s about getting one more day, that’s all we really care about,” UNC head coach Steve Smiley said. “It was a totally different game than some of the games we’ve had recently, where that was the best offensive game we had all year.”
Northern Colorado came out firing early. The Bears hit six of their first seven shots, and held an 18-9 lead with 14:13 to play.
Both teams continued to shoot at a high clip into the second media timeout of the first half, as UNC held on to a 24-18 advantage. The Bears hit five threes in the first 10 minutes of action.
By the third media timeout the contest was all square at 26-26.
With 3:59 to play in the first half the Hornets had taken a slight advantage, leading 35-34.
By the break, the Hornets had the momentum in their favor as they led 45-42 after 20 minutes of play.
Zach Chappell led Sacramento State in scoring at the break with 14 points on a perfect 6-of-6 shooting from the field. The Hornets shot 63 percent from the field in the first half, and hit 4-of-5 from behind the three-point line for a blistering 80 percent.
For UNC, third team all-conference member Bodie Hume scored 14 points in the opening half. As impressive as their opponents shooting percentage was, the Bears were also incredibly solid behind the three-point arc, hitting 7-of-9.
Much like it did in the first half, the opening of the second half belonged to Northern Colorado as they jumped out to an 8-0 run and regained the lead 50-45 with 17:43 on the clock. UNC went on to hit 8-of-9 from the field to start the half.
With 11:14 to play, the contest remained close with the Bears holding a 63-59 lead.
At the under-eight media timeout the Bears still led by four points, 70-66.
With just a shade under 2:30 to play, UNC’s Matt Johnson II hit a triple to push the UNC lead to 82-75 right after Zach Chappell hit one on the other end to cut the Bear lead to four.
As the clock ticked under one minute to play, and the Bears leading by 82-79, UNC’s Daylen Kountz made a driving layup to put his team up five. Following a Sacramento State timeout on the other end, Hume came up with a huge block for the Bears and the No. 8 seed made their free throws down the stretch to ice the contest.
The Bears and Hornets combined to shoot 20-of-30 from behind the three point line, which was the best combined percentage in any Division I game this season (First reported by Ken Pomeroy).
Hume finished the game with a career-high 30 points to lead the Bears, along with eight rebounds, three blocks and two steals. His previous career-high of 27 was set earlier this year against Idaho State. Johnson had 15, while Kountz and Kur Jockuch both finished with 14. Jockuch secured a double-double, pulling down 11 rebounds.
Bryce Fowler finished the contest as the leading scorer for the Hornets, dropping in 23 points on 9-of-18 shooting. Ethan Esposito finished with 18 while Chappell had 17 on 7-of-8 shooting from the field.
UNC’s bench provided a big spark, accounting for 19 points.
The Bears will now advance to take on the No. 1 seeded Thunderbirds of Southern Utah University. That contest will tip off at 11 a.m. MT inside Idaho Central Arena on Thursday.
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