ST. PAUL, Minn. – Death, taxes and
Tim Grosz in February. These are the three guarantees in life. The University of Northwestern Men's Basketball head coach had completed 23 full seasons at the helm entering Saturday and had never in his career missed the conference tournament. The lead up to Saturday's regular season finale matchup between Northwestern and Crown College could be summed up with three of the most exciting words in sports: win and in. Each team entered the showdown with a 7-6 UMAC record and was fighting for the fourth and final available spot in next week's UMAC Men's Basketball Tournament. While Grosz's team spent much of Saturday celebrating its four seniors—
Caleb Hoilien (Minneapolis, Minn./Hope Academy),
Micah Pocernich (Cromwell, Minn./Cromwell-Wright),
Ryan Schneider (Longmont, Colo./Longmont) and
Henry Fahnbulleh (Maple Grove, Minn./Maple Grove)—as well as 50 years of Northwestern basketball, but the Eagles still had a job to do. Thanks to a spirited effort on both ends of the court and some help from a raucous crowd, the Eagles were able to punch their ticket to the conference tournament via an 85-75 win over the Polars, making it 24 years and 24 conference tournament appearances for UNW's signal-caller.
Hoilien, who reached the 1,000-point milestone for his career on Friday night, ripped down an offensive rebound and made the ensuing jump hook to open the scoring. Fahnbulleh scored UNW's next three points to give his team a 6-5 advantage, but the Polars scored the next six before a Hoilien three-pointer cut the deficit to 11-9. On the following possession, Pocernich got involved, making a tough, heavily-contested jumper to make it 13-11, Crown. Two minutes later, Pocernich made another highly-difficult shot, this time a layup to tie the game at 15.
Andrew Koehler (Scandia, Minn./Chisago Lakes) kissed one off the glass to put Northwestern ahead by two on the next possession, but the Polars answered with a three to reclaim the lead. That's when
Japheth Nyamari (Anoka, Minn./Anoka) went to work.
The junior nailed a three with 10:21 to go that gave UNW the lead back, then did the same after a Koehler offensive rebound and dime to make it 23-18, Eagles. Fahnbulleh made a reverse layup from under the hoop, then knocked down a jump shot to keep the lead at five. Crown cut the lead to one, but Hoilien converted an and-one with just over three minutes remaining to energize the sellout crowd and extend the lead to four at 30-26.
Jeremiah LaVelle (Otsego, Minn./Maranatha Christian Academy) added an and-one of his own two minutes later, then Nyamari closed the half with an acrobatic finish at the rim in the closing seconds to put Northwestern ahead 35-33 at halftime.
Nyamari stayed red hot coming out of the locker room, scoring the first five points of the half to give the Eagles a 40-33 edge. The Polars got one back, but a LaVelle step-back three and a Hoilien turn-around jumper kept the momentum on UNW's side as it capped off a 12-2 spurt and stretched its lead to 10. Nyamari continued his theatrics with a breathtaking and-one to make it 50-39, then Hoilien and Koehler scored back-to-back buckets to give Northwestern its largest lead at 54-42. Crown was able to cut the deficit to single digits, but LaVelle made consecutive layups to get it back to 11 at 60-49.
Every time the Polars tried to rally, the Eagles had an answer. Nyamari dropped a dime to Koehler to stop a 6-0 Crown run and make it 64-56 with 7:54 left, then a pair of Hoilien free throws and a fade-away shot from Fahnbulleh pushed it to 68-56. Hoilien scored UNW's next five points as they held a 12-point advantage with 5:55 remaining, then LaVelle did the same with 3:46 to go to make it 78-64. The dagger to Crown's playoff hopes came with 1:29 left when, after a 6-0 Polars run to make things interested, LaVelle single-handedly sliced through Crown's aggressive, full-court trapping defense for a coast-to-coast layup that blew the roof off the Ericksen Center and put the Eagles back up 10. Northwestern, who shot 20-23 (87%) from the free throw line in the contest, closed out the 85-75 win at the charity stripe. Grosz's squad finished the season 16-9 overall and 8-6 in the UMAC despite a 1-5 start in conference play.
In addition to the 87% clip from the free throw line, Northwestern shot a blistering 46.7% from three and 50% from the field as well, scoring 50 points in the second half alone. Hoilien was once again the leading scorer, dropping 21 points to go along with six rebounds and two assists. LaVelle poured in 19 on 7-11 shooting, while Nyamari shot 6-11 (3-4 from three) en route to 18 points, five boards and two assists. Fahnbulleh finished with nine points, five rebounds and two assists, while Koehler scored eight points and grabbed eight boards. Pocernich added five rebounds to go along with his six points.
The Eagles will enter the UMAC Tournament playing perhaps their best basketball of the season, having won eight of their past nine games. Unfortunately, the one loss in that stretch was to Bethany Lutheran, who awaits Northwestern in Wednesday night's UMAC Semifinal game. The Vikings defeated the Eagles 77-70 in the last meeting between the two teams on February 9
th. Stay tuned to unweagles.com and follow @unweagles and @unwmbb on social media for more updates regarding start time for Wednesday's game.
