st. Paul, minn. - the minneapolis-st. Paul backcourt tandem of junior point guards mike cunningham (minneapolis, minn.) and sammy ricks (st. Paul, minn.) helped concordia university (11-11, 9-6 nsic) pull off a 74-73 comeback victory over the university of minnesota duluth (15-10, 9-6 nsic) on saturday evening at the gangelhoff center. Cunningham scored a career-high 26 points while ricks produced four steals, three coming in the final 55 seconds along with his only three-pointer of the night. Junior forward craig heiman (marshall, wis.) provided a double-double (16 points, 13 rebounds) and the game winning free throws with 12 seconds to play. Cu trailed by as many as 19 points in the second half in a game that saw only three lead changes throughout. box score

with 3:53 to play, senior guard matt cadwell (st. Paul, minn.) buried a three to close concordia within six points (71-65), the closest they had been since it was 15-10 just over seven minutes into the game.

but on umd's ensuing possession, the bulldogs drained the shot clock and pulled down an offensive rebound, draining the shot clock down again. After taking 1:15 off the clock on the two possesions, umd center john vaudreuil tipped in an in-bounds pass with one second on the shot clock.

the vaudreuil basket seemed to shut down the concordia comeback, taking the momentum back to the bulldogs after the long possesion that allowed umd to extend their lead back to eight points, 73-65 with 2:38 to go.

minnesota duluth would not score again as cu limited them to only one shot the rest of the way, forcing four turnovers down the stretch, three coming on ricks steals.

offensively, it was cunningham who score four unanswered points to cut the gap to four with 1:44 to play.

a ricks steal led to what appeared a broken possession for the golden bears, as heiman scrambled for the ball on the ground with the shot clock running low, he was able to push the ball to ricks. From just inside the nba three-point arc, ricks buried a three to bring concordia within a point with 42 seconds remaining.

after back-to-back timeouts by each team, seven seconds later ricks picked ron white, turning the ball back over to the home team with no shot clock and a one point deficit.

it was obvious who head coach kelly boe was going to turn to in this situation, the night's leading scorer, cunningham. After he received the entry pass in the post with time in the mid-20's, he took the ball back out top.

as the clock ticked into the teen's, cunningham made his move. His jumper misfired and a battle for the rebound ensued. It was only fitting that heiman, the top rebounder in the game, would earn the rebound as he was fouled on the play by multiple bulldogs.

the foul put one of the best free throw shooters in the league on the stripe for a pair. And heiman delivered in the clutch, giving concordia their first lead since the 14:01 mark of the first half.

umd had one last shot, with 12 seconds to play, they struggled to break the concordia press. Right around half court, ricks came from behind and stripped point guard jordan schade. Although he dashed to the basket solo, his exclamation dunk misfired but cadwell was there to coral the rebound as the clock hit 00:00.

while cunningham, ricks and heiman were obvious heroes, the golden bears pulled off the comeback with numerous big moments from a wide cast in the second half. Junior forward thomas bassett (denison, iowa) provided 15 minutes off the bench in the second half and was perfect from the floor in three attempts. More importantly, his 6-6 frame that was missed in the first half would provide the necessary punch down low and on the glass to keep umd big's john vaudreil and brian sykora from continuing to assault cu in the paint.

in the first half, the two umd big's combined to shoot 8-12 with 18 points and nine rebounds. In the second half, they still managed 19 points but only had five rebounds, one on the defensive glass and were a less effective 8-16 from the floor. They also had to work that much harder, which provided concordia with the advantage as umd couldn't score down the stretch.

cadwell, who had been averaging over three three-pointers per night in the last five games, delivered clutch baskets and finished with 10 points, hitting two more three's tonight.

it was a game that umd took control of early. With cu leading 10-8 six minutes in, the bulldogs went on a 16-0 run over the next six minutes to move the margin to double-digits.

the lead stayed in double-figures until a pair of cunningham free throws dropped the deficit to eight with 7:49 to play in the game.

the shooting was a tale of two halves as the bulldogs came out and shot 51.1% (17-33) in the opening 20 minutes while concordia sputter, hitting just nine of their first 29 shots (31.0%). Umd also connected on 5-9 from three-point range in the first half while cu was an ineffective 4-13.

in the second half, concordia shot the lights out, hitting 15-26 (57.7%) while holding the bulldogs to 41.4% (12-29) shooting from the floor. Concordia was more selective in their three-point gunning and it paid off as they buried three of their five long range attempts while the bulldogs went cold, hitting just one of six.

the overall shooting ended up fairly even, as umd hit 46.8% from the floor to cu's 43.6%.

cunningham's aggressive slashing also contributed to a huge advantage at the foul line as he was 8-12 at the line compared to umd as a team shooting 9-10. The rest of the golden bears were clutch at the stripe, hitting 11-12 as the team converted 79.2% of their 24 free throws.

concordia turned the ball over only eight times while forcing 13, leading to a 13-2 edge in fastbreak scoring.

the win was huge down the stretch for concordia as they move into a tie for seventh place with minnesota duluth, and are only a game out of fifth place northern state and a half game behind augustana for sixth.

they look to continue their february surge next weekend and will be tested on the road when they take on minnesota state university, mankato (11-4, 2nd nsic) and southwest minnesota state university (12-3, 1st nsic). Concordia was swept at home by msu and smsu earlier this season.