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65
Northland NC 0-24,0-13 UMAC
86
Winner Northwestern-St. Paul UNW 13-11,8-5 UMAC
Northland NC
0-24,0-13 UMAC
65
Final
86
Northwestern-St. Paul UNW
13-11,8-5 UMAC
Winner
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 F
Northland NC 23 42 65
Northwestern-St. Paul UNW 49 37 86
Anderson Recap Pic

Game Recap: Men's Basketball | | Jess Poppen

Eagles Defeat Jacks to Set Up Pivotal Saturday Finale

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Step one of the University of Northwestern Men's Basketball team's final week playoff push is complete. With an 86-65 home win over Northland College on Wednesday night, the Eagles now control their own destiny when it comes to making the UMAC Tournament. A home win on Saturday against Crown College will clinch the three seed, a loss will end their season.
 
Northwestern opened the game with makes on its first three possessions—an AJ Greene (Roseville, Minn./Concordia Academy) jump shot, a Soren Anderson (Perham, Minn./Perham) layup and a Japheth Nyamari (Anoka, Minn./Anoka) three-pointer—to open up a 7-2 lead over Northland. A pull-up jumper by Nyamari made it 9-6, then a Noah Frazell (Waverly, Iowa/Waverly-Shell Rock) three just over a minute later extended the lead to 14-10. Five more points from Nyamari made it an 8-0 run for UNW and put the score at 19-10, and the hosts would never look back. Three's by Caden Stevens (Highlands Ranch, Colo./Mountain Vista) and Kelton Vincent (Volga, S.D./Sioux Valley) highlighted another 8-0 run that pushed the lead to 27-15, then a 12-0 run toward the end of the half from Greene (one point), Frazell (two points), Nyamari (five points) and Elijah Burns (Grand Prairie, Texas/Roseville Area) (four points) blew the game open and made the score 43-21 with 2:51 left in the opening half. Two more Nyamari buckets and one more from Greene made up a 6-0 run in the final 1:07 to make it 49-23 in favor of the Eagles at halftime.
 
Much like the first half, Greene scored the opening points of the second to extend the lead to 28. Unlike the first half, a resilient LumberJacks squad fought back and wouldn't allow Northwestern to go on big runs. The lead was 27 after Nyamari's 21st and final point of the night, and five more points from Frazell, then a Greene layup made it 60-34. A 13-4 run made up of six Wolbert points, five from Anderson and two from Stevens gave UNW its largest lead of the night at 73-42, but Northland closed the game strong. A Stevens three-pointer was Northwestern's only bucket in a 15-3 Jacks run that trimmed their deficit to 19 with 3:31 left to play. A Frazell trey and a Wolbert layup stopped the bleeding momentarily, but Northland got it back to 19 again with 1:45 to go. An Anderson layup and a Wolbert three capped off the scoring for the Eagles as they finished off an 86-65 win to improve to 13-11 on the season and 8-5 in the UMAC.
 
Nyamari led the way with 21 points (19 in the first half) and four rebounds, while Wolbert chipped in with 15 points. Anderson racked up his sixth double-double of the season with 13 points, 13 rebounds and four assists, while Frazell matched him in two of those categories with 13 points and four assists himself. Greene tallied nine points, four boards and three assists, while Stevens finished with eight points, four rebounds, three assists and three blocks. As a team, UNW shot 43.5% from behind the arc and 80% from the free throw line. Northwestern's bench also out-scored Northland's 36-6, and the Eagles won the rebounding battle 35-27.
 
Saturday's season finale will feel oddly familiar, as it is the second year Northwestern will close its regular season at home against Crown with a playoff berth on the line in a "win-and-in" scenario. Due to the other UMAC results Wednesday night, UNW's only path to the postseason is with a win against the Polars, and the only seed they can claim in the tournament is No. 3. Tip-off for the Senior Day spectacular in the Ericksen Center is scheduled for 3:00 PM on Saturday.
 
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