BETHANY, Okla. — Southern Nazarene crept a little closer to a Great American Conference Tournament berth with a 96-90 win over Harding Thursday night.
 
CJ Rodriguez scored a career-high 27 points for the Crimson Storm (13-11, 9-9 GAC) as the junior went 6-for-9 from the field, 4-for-5 from 3-point range and 11-for-13 from the line. SNU can now clinch a spot in the GAC Tournament with a win over Ouachita Baptist Saturday. The win also gave the Storm its sixth straight win inside the Sawyer Center.
 
Six players in all scored in double figures for SNU with 25 points coming off of the bench. LB Willis added 15 points while Garrett Butler added 14. Willis went 6-for-8 from the field and 3-for-4 from the line. He also added six assists and five steals. Butler went 5-for-8 from the field and 4-for-6 from 3-point range. Anton Kankaanpaa added 12 while Francisco Hukill had 11.
 
The Crimson Storm shot a blistering 56.4 percent from the field and went 12-for-22 from downtown. SNU also went 22-for-29 from the free-throw line. The Storm turned the ball over just 10 times and scored 14 points off of Harding's nine turnovers.
 
Southern Nazarene lit up the nets in the first half as it went 9-for-14 from 3-point range and didn't take long getting out to a big lead. SNU took a 28-11 lead with 9:02 left in the first half and stretched it to 44-21 with 1:38 left in the half. The Storm took a 47-27 lead into the half, but the Bisons kept chipping away at the lead. Harding cut it to 10 at 62-52 with 10:38 to play, but the Storm used a 17-9 run, capped by a Cory McCrary 3-pointer to take a 79-61 lead with 4:35 left.
 
Harding though got the deficit down to single digits for the first time since the 13:41 mark in the first half as the Bisons cut it to 82-73 and got it to 86-78 with 1:34 to play. The Storm pushed it to 10 two more times before the Bisons went on a 10-4 run in a 27-second stretch to make it 94-90 with six seconds to play.