Bears get clutch performance in win

The UNC men’s basketball team survived an overtime thriller against Northern Arizona University 70-63 Sunday at the Butler-Hancock Sports Pavilion.

Junior guard Devon Beitzel scored 21 of his game-high 24 points in the second half and overtime, and sophomore forward Mike Proctor added a double-double, 14 points and 11 rebounds, along with four blocks.

“If we didn’t have Will Figures, Mike Proctor or Devon Beitzel play like they did tonight, we would have lost this game by 20,” head coach Tad Boyle said.

The University of Northern Colorado (19-5, 8-3) continued its latest trend of poor shooting in the first halves of games, shooting only 37 percent from the field, including only 1-7 from 3-point distance while allowing NAU (11-11, 5-6) to shoot 43 percent.

Boyle said UNC went into the locker room at halftime, down only one at 26-25, but his team responded in the second half, continuing on a 30-10 run that started in the final minutes of the first half and built its lead up to 11 at 41-30.

But the Bears went cold again, going five minutes without scoring and allowing NAU back into the game. In the closing minutes of the second half, the two teams were exchanging leads and failed opportunities. UNC dodged a bullet when NAU went to the line for a one-and-one and were called for a lane violation on a make that negated the two free throw chances.

With 22 seconds left in the second half, the Bears found themselves down one; a drive and dish set up Proctor for a dunk where he was hacked on his way up and sent to the line. Proctor missed the first one; but on the second, he got a shooters’ roll and sent the game to overtime tied at 56-56.

“I was thinking about my previous misses when I was about to shoot the second free throw and was trying to just not think,” Proctor said.

In overtime, the Bears struggled on their first three possessions and quickly found themselves down two, but back-to-back 3-pointers by Beitzel ignited the crowd and led to a 10-0 run by the Bears that put the game away.

“We practice final second situations and overtime situations every day in practice. So, we were prepared for anything, and we were confident in ourselves,” Beitzel said.

Senior guard Will Figures gave fans a scare when he laid on the ground in pain midway through the second half after an apparent ankle sprain, but he added another great performance of 21 points and nine rebounds.

Though the Bears are all smiles right now, coach Boyle said he  knows there is a lot that needs to be learned from this win.

“Right now, we are relying on shots and feeding off our crowd to bring energy, but we need to be able to do that ourselves,” Boyle said. “I do think though we probably needed an overtime game to show that we can win them. But I told our team we have to be able to learn from it.”

Bears will get to show what they’ve learned when they go back on the road to play Idaho State at 7:05 p.m. Friday night and then play a game against Big Sky leading Weber State on Saturday.