Monday, February 7, 2022

PORTLAND, Ore. – Four days ago, Alaska men’s basketball would probably not have been the favorite to win GNAC Team of the Week.

The Nanooks had lost three straight and were bringing up the rear of the conference standings at 1-7. If that wasn’t enough, Alaska was also down to just six available players. Among those absent was Shadeed Shabazz, who at 21.2 points per game is the GNAC’s leading scorer by a healthy margin.

None of that mattered to the Nanooks, however, as they rode an extraordinary mix of heart, grit and relentless shotmaking to two home wins, topping Western Washington 81-75 on Thursday and Simon Fraser 64-59 on Saturday. Alaska’s two shorthanded victories, which climbed them out of last place in the GNAC standings, have earned them that GNAC Team of the Week award.

"This is a great honor for our team that showed a lot of grit and determination,” head coach Greg Sparling said. “They played together, for each other and gave us everything they had while playing shorthanded. It was especially nice to do it in front of our home crowd. I couldn't be more proud of our team."

To replace Shabazz’s scoring, the Nanooks rallied behind senior sharpshooting guard Quin Barnard. Barnard tallied a career-high 31 points while shooting 8 of 13 from behind the arc and 7 of 8 from the free-throw line against Western Washington. Against Simon Fraser, Barnard had a team-high 18 points and once again either splashed threes or got to the line, shooting 3 of 7 from deep and 9 of 11 from the stripe.

Several players had monster stat lines in the WWU game, in part because they played so much they didn’t have a choice but to put up numbers. Forward Abdullahi Mohamed had the second-most points behind Barnard with 21, also a career high for the sophomore from Seattle, and added 11 rebounds for his first career double-double. Senior forward Coleman Sparling also had a big double-double with 10 points and 15 rebounds. Koby Huerta played the role of distributor, dishing out six assists while grabbing three rebounds and a steal.

Alaska started hot, storming out to an 8-2 lead after a Sparling three-pointer, but Western Washington hung with them and the two teams entered halftime tied at 32. It didn’t stay close for long, as Barnard came out on fire in the second half, hitting three three-pointers within Alaska’s first five field-goal attempts after the break. By the time Barnard hit his eighth three of the game and seventh of the half with 3:44 to play, the Nanooks led 74-59 and went 7 of 8 from the line the rest of the way to ice it and reach the 81-75 final.

Two nights later, a gassed Nanooks squad had to face a Simon Fraser team that only played three players for more than 25 minutes in its previous game. Undeterred, Alaska again jumped out to a 7-0 lead in the first two-and-a-half minutes on a jumper from Tybenn Sturm, a lay-up from Mohamed and a three-pointer from Sparling.

Still, Alaska’s shots weren’t falling at quite the same clip as two nights before, and Simon Fraser held a three-point lead at 59-56 with just under three minutes to play. From that point on, the Nanooks locked down on defense and repeatedly got to the line. Mohamed hit two free throws to cut the lead to one and then Barnard hit two more to put Alaska ahead. A Huerta jumper extended the lead and two more free throws from Barnard iced it with less than a second left. In the meantime, Simon Fraser was held by a still-energetic Alaska defense to 0-for-5 shooting with a turnover in the game’s final 2:52.

Sparling recorded his second double-double of the week with 11 points and 10 rebounds while also adding five assists. Sparling and Huerta played 78 of a possible 80 minutes over the two games, while Barnard played 77.

With or without reinforcements, Alaska will still have a tough test in the week ahead, hosting second-place Montana State Billings on Thursday before traveling to Central Washington, who boasts the conference’s top-scoring offense, for a game on Saturday.