BETHANY - No. 10 Southern Nazarene jumped out to an early lead and never looked back as they finished the game on a 17-0 to overwhelm Northwestern Oklahoma State, 98-60, on Thursday evening at the Sawyer Center.
It is SNU's 25th consecutive win inside the Sawyer Center. It is already the most consecutive won in Sawyer, a building that opened 1998, and more history can be made on Saturday against Southeastern as the Crimson Storm can tie the school record for most consecutive home wins at 26, a record held by by the 1975-76 and 1976-77 teams inside the Broadhurst Center. The 25 consecutive wins is the second most active wins at home in all of NCAA Division II.
In the game tonight, SNU shot 32 of 62 (52%) from the field and 9 of 22 (41%) from deep. The Crimson Storm were aggressive offensive for most of the night as they got to the line 35 times and shot 71% from the field. The defense was also on point as they held Northwestern to 19 of 56 (34%) from the field and 7 of 22 (32%) from deep. The Rangers got to the line 28 times, but only shot 54% from the charity stripe.
SNU outrebounded Northwestern 41-33, held a 16-8 advantage in assists, and only turned the ball over a season-low six times while forcing 12 takeaways on the other end.
The Crimson Storm came out hot as back-to-back 3-pointer from
Micah Speight and
Jhonathan Dunn, followed by a thunderous breakaway dunk by Dunn made it a 12-4 game. RJ Palmer and
Noah Starkey got involved in the dunk party later in the half and SNU held an 18-6 lead at the second media timeout.
After a three from the Rangers, SNU got five straight points from Speight to push the lead out to 14. SNU used brilliant defense and was able to push the lead to 18 with 6:48 to play.
As Northwestern tried to keep up, Palmer threw down a massive slam on a breakaway and with 2:37 remaining, the Crimson Storm had their largest lead of the half at 40-21. Northwestern was able to push it back to 14, but aggressive play resulted in free throws from Starkey and Palmer and SNU closed the half with a 47-29 lead.
In the second half, Northwestern tried to spark a run, getting as close as 14 on a few different occasions early on, but SNU would make the big stop and the big play on the offensive end to push it right back out. The turning point came at the 11:20 mark with SNU up by 16, Speight came and stole the ball in the paint and raced to the basket, drawing contact to earn the foul and finishing at the bucket to set up a 3-point play.
From there,
Zach Johnson buried a 3-pointer to get the lead to 22 and the rout was on. In the final 3:39, already leading by 21, SNU went on a 17-0 run as
Coleman Edwards caught fire along with buckets from
Brady Mulkey and
Chris Stephens to close the game with a dominant 98-60 win.
Dunn led the way with 18 points while Speight followed with 16 points, five boards, three assists, and two steals. Palmer had a nice game with 14 points and seven boards off the bench while Starkey had another double-double, going for 13 points, 11 rebounds, and three blocks. Edwards scored 10 while
Quaylon Newton had nine points and four boards.
Ashton Charles and Stephens each had six points off the bench while Johnson had four points and two steals.
Jack Peck led the Rangers with 14 points and 10 boards while A.J. Jones had 12 points and five rebounds.
With the win, SNU goes to 20-3, their second consecutive 20-win season and with Southern Arkansas and Oklahoma Baptist both falling on the road, earn a game up in the GAC Standings at 13-2. The Crimson Storm will look for a little payback on Saturday as they welcome in Southeastern at 3 p.m. The two sides met in Durant on December 3rd with the Savage Storm taking a shocking 76-43 win over SNU.
