duluth, minn. - concordia university men's basketball advanced another spot in the northern sun standings, moving to a fifth place tie by defeating minnesota duluth 86-85 on saturday night at romano gymnasium. Trailing by two with 32 seconds on the game clock and umd throwing in the ball near half court with 28 seconds on the shot clock, sophomore post brent barz (johnston, iowa) and junior guard courtney tyler (eagan, minn.) forced a steal near midcourt. Tyler took the loose ball the distance, finishing in the lane and converting the three-point play to put concordia ahead 86-85. Tyler finished with eight points, scoring six in the final 39 seconds. box score
on minnesota duluth's possession, ryan rasmussen took a long three-pointer early in the shot clock, with tyler grabbing the rebound.
struggling to advance the ball into the front court, concordia used a timeout. Out of the timeout with eight seconds to play, concordia threw the ball the length of the floor, but the pass sailed out of bounds untouched and umd gained possession in their own end.
umd went back to rasmussen, who pulled up for a contested jumper off the elbow just inside the arc, missing everything as barz pulled in the rebound on the jumper that fell short and was able to dribble out the remainder of the time. Barz finished with 19 points and nine rebounds, shooting 5-7 from the floor and 9-13 from the stripe.
the golden bears jumped out to an early five point lead in the first two minutes but went on a four minute scoreless drought as umd went on a 14-0 run on their way to a 14 point lead, 44-30, with just over four and a half minutes to play in the first half.
but seniors craig heiman (marshall, wis.) and mike cunningham (minneapolis, minn.) along with barz, all scored four points in the final four-plus minutes of play while the cu defense clamped down, holding the bulldogs to four points during that time in what was a 14-2 run before umd put in a buzzer-beater to close out the half ahead 48-44.
heiman finished with 19 points as he poured in 49 in cu's two wins over the weekend, while cunningham added 14 and was perfect in six free throw attempts. Cunningham is now just 13 points shy of becoming the 15th member of the 1,000 point club.
the golden bears continued their rally in the second half with the first five points once again, opening each half with 5-0 runs and extending their run from the end of the first half to a 19-4 margin over nearly six and a half minutes of basketball.
duluth would regain control of the game, though, pulling back on top by eight, 66-58 nearing the midway point of the second period.
umd maintained their lead for much of the second half, leading by as many as six (80-74) with just over two and a half to play.
trailing by five (85-80) with under a minute left, tyler got hot, knocking down a three with 39 seconds on the clock as he turned it up a notch, getting the steal 11 seconds later and finishing the layup and free throw with 26 seconds remaining.
while tyler made an impact off the bench late, senior post thomas bassett (denison, iowa) had his best game of the year with 16 points and three assists in 15 minutes of reserve play.
concordia shot the ball well throughout, hitting 55.4% (31-56) from the floor but only cashed three three-pointers. But their strong, physical post play put them on the foul line often, where they were successful hitting 77.8% of their 27 attempts (21 made). The post play also controlled the glass with a 36-23 margin including a 13-8 mark on the offensive boards.
that strong play down low undoubtedly took a toll on the bulldogs, who scorched nets for 11-22 three-point shooting (50.0%) but shot at the same rate from the foul line in only eight attempts (4 made). In fact, umd hit 8-12 from three in the first half alone but managed just 3-10 in the second half as the game wore on, including rasmussen's missed three and missed 18 foot jumper in the last 30 seconds.
rasmussen led umd with 16 points, hitting 4-8 from three but concordia held him in check when it counted. As a team, umd shot 54.7% (35-64) from the floor including 61.3% (19-31) shooting in the first half.
but it was concordia's size and strength that won out in the end.
the win for concordia is their fourth straight, improving them to 9-6 in the nsic, tied with u-mary, who lost at winona state tonight. Winona state is a game ahead of cu in fourth at 10-5 and augustana is 1.5 games up at 10-4 in third place.
meanwhile, concordia is a game ahead of southwest minnesota state (8-7) for seventh as the mustangs have also rattled off four straight wins, and are a game and half ahead of upper iowa (7-7), who defeated northern state tonight for sole possession of eighth in the standings.
with five games remaining, the picture couldn't be fuzzier in the league race. Next weekend, the golden bears face league-leading #4 minnesota state (14-1) and smsu (7-7) at gangelhoff center for 8:00 p.m. Tips to start a three game home stretch with msu moorhead at gangelhoff on feb. 20 (6:00 p.m.). They close at st. Cloud state and upper iowa.
