Northern Colorado basketball vs. Weber State: What they said, numbers to note
The University of Northern Colorado (8-16, 3-9 Big Sky) basketball team beat Weber State (12-12, 7-4 Big Sky) on Monday night behind an 88-54 performance.
All 14 available players contributed positively, while four players scored in double-digits, one eclipsed 20 and another finished with eight. Though the Wildcats looked tired from their double overtime win at Idaho State last week, that clobbering was due to more than just exhaustion. UNC played well on both ends for the whole game.
Graduate student Riley Abercrombie led all scorers with a career-high 21 points on seven made 3s. He sank five in the second half and started 7-of-7 from downtown until narrowly missing his eighth attempt.
Here’s what Abercrombie and Bears coach Steve Smiley said after the impressive win.
Performance and mentality
RA: I think we came out from the jump and set the tone. I thought we were really locked in and really ready to play. We had an awesome student crowd there that got us fired up.
RA: We knew we needed a big win tonight to help our momentum to keep moving forward, I was happy we went out and got that.
SS: You learn a lot about people when they’re losing, and we’ve lost more than our fair share. It’s not fun. It’s painful. It can really be a tough thing. When we started off practice (Monday), we talked about the responsibility and the response of tonight. You can talk all you want, but at the same point in time, you have to go do it. Our guys did it to the highest level tonight.
SS: We have not won as much as we thought we would at this point, but we feel like we have a good team — to not just win but to have a great start, to get up big and have a doubledigit lead.
SS: Every stat on here was great. That was the best game that we’ve played, not only this year but factoring in the opponent. I don’t think you can play any better.
Abercrombie hitting five 3s in the second half
RA: I was really thankful that my teammates kept finding me. They kept find
ing me opportunities, I kept getting open and I kept letting it go. Sometimes, every time it goes in. Sometimes, you miss. I’m glad tonight that it went in every time, basically.
Jalen Page and Dawson Mohr scoring their first points as Bears on late triples
RA: It was awesome. It doesn’t get better than that, and you’re having so much fun on the bench. It takes a lot from those guys to step in and go 1-for-1 each, backto-back huge shots. That’s a tough thing to do. I’ve been there when I was young and coming into the game, having to shoot that shot. I was really happy to see that go in, and I was really happy for them.
SS: Those are some selfless dudes. You want everyone to have success. The reality of the situation is you have 15 kids on the roster. We’re redshirting one
kid, so you have 14 kids you can throw in the game. You can’t do that. In a normal game, you’re going to play eight or nine guys. So you’ve got on this team five guys that work so hard — whether it’s on scout team, all this stuff behind the scenes — and they get no reward for it. It’s a really selfless thing to keep doing that. To get those two dudes in there, I was just glad they fired them off and they shot them. J-Page hit that big 3, and then Dawson hit the 3. That’s a stretch they’ll remember forever and our fans will talk about forever. It was awesome. It was a really cool end to the night.
Where did this statement win come from?
SS: I’d love to tell you I gave the greatest motivational talk ever. I don’t know. It’s our third game in five days. We left Bozeman, Montana, at 5 a.m. (Sunday) to catch a flight, so I wouldn’t say it’s rest. It was a really hard road trip. We lost a heartbreaker at Montana, then just got drilled
at Montana State; did not play well at all. Then, boom, you’re on the bus and you’re on the plane and you travel all day yesterday. We didn’t practice (Sunday). I thought it was important to take the day off. More than anything we could do on the court, they’ve got to get their bodies right, get their minds right. I think we did a good job with that.
It’s a resilient crew. Even before the game, if you went to our practices, you’d never know our record’s not very good right now. That gives us hope and faith of what we could become — getting into this February stretch into the Boise Tournament — because anything can happen in Boise if you’re playing your best.
The student section storming the court
SS: It was good for our kids. They stay up until almost midnight watching a basketball game, you might as well storm the court. It was pretty cool for sure.
Playing against Weber head coach Eric Duft
SS: Their head coach is one of my best friends. We worked together at Weber. We were there together both years I was there. He was actually my roommate on the road. We’re really close and our kids are good friends. We have the same age kids. Love the dude.
Getting to play on ESPNU
SS: It’s not just (good) for us and our team but for our university and for our community to get a chance to have that game on national TV. At some point, we’ll see the metrics and how many eyeballs were on that, but there’s a lot of people who watch that game. On a Monday night, there’s not a lot of games on, so a lot of people got their first chance to watch Northern Colorado. For us to play that well in that atmosphere, it was great.The Bears return to Bank of Colorado Arena this week for two home games. They play at 6 p.m. Thursday when Portland State comes to Greeley and again at 6 p.m. Saturday against Sacramento State.