MARYVILLE, Mo. — College basketball in March is all about win and advance. Style points count for nothing.
No. 15 Southern Nazarene did just that on Saturday night, overcoming a second half rally by MSU-Moorhead to take down the Dragons in overtime, 67-64, in the quarterfinals of the NCAA Central Region tournament.
With the win, the Crimson Storm (26-4) advances to Sunday's semifinal round where they will take on the host and No. 1 seed, Northwest Missouri State. Tip time is set for 7:30 p.m. from Bearcat Arena.
The Bearcats are the three-time defending national champion and defeated No. 8 seed Southern Arkansas, in the quarterfinal round on Saturday.
"We're looking forward to it," SNU senior Mo Wilson II said. "You always want to play the best. They're hosting the regional for a reason and we're just going to play our way and try to have fun."
Saturday against the Dragons (25-7), SNU raced out to a big first half lead before seeing Moorhead rally in the second half. The Crimson Storm led, 60-48, with 6:41 to play on a 3-pointer by senior Jalen Lynn. SNU would hit just a single field goal the rest of regulation, as the Dragons continually crashed the offensive glass and slowly whittled away at the lead.
After collecting just one offensive rebound in the first half, Moorhead—which came into the game averaging 10 offensive rebounds per game this season—grabbed 10 in the second half and turned those into nine second chance points.
With SNU leading, 62-60 with 14 seconds remaining, Lorenzo McGhee scored on a driving layup with five seconds left to tie the score. SNU had a chance to win it at the buzzer, but junior Nick Davis' shot was no good.
In overtime, Lynn staked the Crimson Storm to an early lead with a 3-pointer on the team's first offensive possession of the period. Lynn finished the game with 11 points on 3-of-5 shooting from 3-point range, but also played tremendous defense against the Dragons' leading scorer, Jacob Beeninga, helping to hold him to just 13 points on 5-of-13 shooting.
"He was tremendous," SNU coach Adam Bohac said of Lynn. "Boy he made some big time plays on both ends of the floor. He chased No. 4 (Beeninga) around the whole game and that's no small feat to do that through some really good screens and some really good actions."
The Storm clamped down defensively in overtime, holding the Dragons without a field goal on 0-of-5 shooting. Four of those shots came from the 3-point line, as SNU denied the Dragons easy looks inside.
"We spend a lot of time talking about doing the next right thing and that was really the case there," Bohac said about his team's response at the beginning of overtime. "We could have hung our heads and felt bad about ourselves, pouted or whatever you want to say. We didn't and we got a stop to start overtime and then got a basket. I thought that was real wind in our sails and carried us through the extra session."
Southern Nazarene was led by sophomore Tyler McGhie, who scored 23 points. Freshman Javon Jackson had 18 points and five assists. Davis added eight points and also grabbed 10 rebounds.
The Dragons were led by junior Dane Zimmer, who had a double-double with 15 points and 15 rebounds, five of those on the offensive glass. McGhee had 12 to add to Beeninga's 13 points.
SNU was spectacular in the first half offensively, racing out to a 44-30 lead at the break, knocking down 8-of-10 3-pointers in the process. Overall, SNU shot 64 percent from the field, with McGhie and Jackson combining for 28 of the 44 points.
"We got off to a good start and had some momentum going into the locker room at halftime," Bohac said. "You look at halftime and they hadn't gotten any O-glass and had only made one three and you knew that probably wasn't going to be the story line in the second half."
Sure enough, Moorhead began the second half by making a few 3-pointers to cut into the SNU lead. The Dragons sliced the lead to single-digits on multiple occasions in the second half, but the Crimson Storm pushed the lead back over 10 each time before the final Dragons' push to force overtime.
This will be the second time the Crimson Storm and the Bearcats have faced off in the semifinals of the NCAA Central Region tournament. The two teams met back in 2019, with the Bearcats winning, 70-59, en route to the the first of their three consecutive national championships.
