Monday, January 7, 2019

PORTLAND, Ore. – Heading into the start of 2019 in search of its first conference victory of the season, the Alaska Anchorage men's basketball team got that and more in a huge week for the Seawolves.

Tipping the month of January off against first-place Western Oregon, the Seawolves put a stop to a 20-game conference winning streak for the Wolves in a dramatic 61-57 victory. The team then rounded out its weekend with a 75-66 victory over Concordia, earning the selection as GNAC Team of the Week. 

Head coach Rusty Osborne's team was led by guard/forward Tyler Brimhall, who averaged 18.5 points and 7.5 rebounds over the two victories. Brimhall is the team-leader in both of those categories on the season, scoring at a clip of 17.1 points per game while pulling down an average of 7.2 rebounds.

Forward Sjur Berg held things down in the post for UAA, averaging 12 points and 7.5 rebounds on the week. An 18-point explosion led all Seawolves in Thursday's big victory over WOU.

"It was a good weekend back after not playing for close to a month," said Osborne. "I thought our guys did a good job of trying to execute the things we had worked on in practice."

Eager to return to game action after the long holiday layover, Alaska Anchorage fired on all cylinders in the first half and took a 31-22 lead into the locker room. Some of that execution then played a big role in the second stanza, where the hosts managed the lead well and made seven free throws in the final two minutes to ice the win.  

The team was able to follow that victory with a solid performance two days later against the Cavaliers, outscoring the visitors by 16 in the second half to cap the 2-0 week. 

"All conference games are a challenge because of the familiarity between programs, so beating a very talented WOU team and then following it up against a confident Concordia group was encouraging," Osborne said. "Hopefully we can continue to improve as we compete for a spot in the GNAC tournament." 

The Seawolves will hit the road now and put their winning streak on the line twice this week. They will return to the floor on Thursday night in Lacey against Saint Martin's before ending the road trip two days later at Seattle Pacific.