In the last 2:25 of the game, SFU went on an impressive run, outscoring the University of Alaska Fairbanks Nanooks 12–5. Too little, too late, as the men’s basketball team fell 78–68 in the end, but it was pretty impressive for a team that hadn’t managed a single point in the nearly five minutes previous, and in the other 17:45 of the half had only 23 points to show.
“We got more aggressive, and in turn, they kind of backed off,” said Head Coach Virgil Hill.
In that short span, freshman Oshea Gairey put a show of his own on, with seven of those 12 points coming from him.
Though the loss Thursday night in the West Gym marked SFU’s 17th straight loss, and for vast stretches, the team was unable to find much offence, it was encouraging to see two straight games where SFU was competitive. In Saturday’s game, SFU lost by only four points and held the lead at various points in the second half.
“I thought we battled from tip to buzzer, we didn’t give up,” Hill explained. “At this point in our season, I’ll take any positive and certainly we’re generally not getting blown out, so for us that’s a positive. We could just easily pack it in, and never try hard again, but we’re in it. We’re in it, we’re battling, we’re just a little young and we just can’t close.”
The Nanooks opened the scoring, going up 2–0 29 seconds in, but senior Michael Harper answered right back for the Clan in the beginning of what was a good game for him, putting up 23 points total and making a few key defensive plays.
Andrew Williamson gave SFU the 4–2 lead moments — his only points of the game — but for the rest of the game, SFU would trail.
At one point in the first half, the Nanooks built up a nine-point lead, however, SFU eventually clawed their way back in, ending the first down only by three, by score of 36–33.
“I thought we did a really good job defensively in the first half. The first half I thought we really competed and took them out of a few things they wanted to do, and just made it difficult. The whole thing for us is to just give them resistance,” said Hill.
SFU also benefitted from the free throw gods — or at least Cedric Chen’s operatic chants — in the first half, sinking nine of their 11 attempts, while the Nanooks put up an atrocious three for nine.
“I’ll take any positive and certainly we’re generally not getting blown out, so for us that’s a positive.”
In the first half, SFU completely shutout the Nanooks’ leading scoring Travante Williams, who averages 17.6 points per game.
“We made a concerted effort to attack him,” said Hill.
However, in the second, SFU’s fortunes changed. Though the Clan put up a decent seven for 11 free throws, the Nanooks made up for an abysmal first half going 10 for 14. And Williams made up for getting shutout by scoring 13 points in the second, something Hill believes happened because of a lack of calls.
“Officiating’s a hard thing to do, [but] there’s obvious calls to be made,” he explained. “I think they missed on a couple of calls — some of them were consequential. They missed on a guy stepping out of bounds and they scored on a swing bucket. Well, if Travante [Williams] gets his fourth foul, he goes out of the game earlier, now maybe we make a run without their best player. So those are instances in the game where the dynamic of the game changes based on if that foul’s called: now he has four with seven minutes to go, their coach has to make a decision — ‘Do we take him out, or do we keep him in?’
“[We made an effort to] put him into foul trouble, and we did that, but the refs missed those calls.”
Harper opened the second half’s scoring to put SFU within one, but the Nanooks quickly asserted dominance, at one point building a 17-point lead.
“It’s hard, because it’s now not gross errors, just kind of small errors, and we start to grow and get better, but unfortunately the teams we’re playing are better,” explained Hill. “But I know we’ve gotten better.”
One of real positives of the game was freshman Graham Smith. Despite limited minutes — only six — he made the most of his playing time and scoring five points. He could be a key player in the next few seasons.
Hidde Vos snapped a two game pointless drought by putting up eight points, six of them coming on the three point line, his bread and butter. He was even making more attempts, trying for eight field goals — making three — when the last two games combined he only made six attempts. Vos was rewarded for his increased output with more playing time, putting up 19 minutes on the court, compared to 11 and 14 minutes the last two games.
