The University of Minnesota Crookston Golden Eagle Men’s Basketball team had the hot hand and scored over 100 points on their way to a 104-70 victory over Northwestern University of St. Paul in an exhibition game played at Lysaker Gymnasium in Crookston.
UMC jumped out to an 11-2 lead behind five points from Chase Knickerbocker (Sr. Annandale), four points from Josh Collins (Sr. Minneapolis) and a basket from Ben Juhl (Soph. Clive, IA). Northwestern stopped the run with a basket before Knickerbocker made his third straight shot to start the game and Malcolm Cohen (Jr. Detroit, MI) cut through the lane for a layup and the 6’10 Spaniard, Javier Nicolau (Jr. Castellon, Spain) scored with a nice move in the paint for a 17-4 lead and the Golden Eagles looked like a fine-tuned machine. Northwestern answered with three points before Cohen buried a three-pointer, which was followed by Harrison Cleary (Jr. Oak Creek, Wis) making a three-pointer and UMC led 23-7. “We had a good start to the game and that was nice to see,” said UMC Coach Dan Weisse. “We put in a new offense and we ran it well at times and we showed we will have a little depth too.” UMC ran into a little bit of a lull in the final seven minutes of the half and a 22 point (37-15) lead was shaved down to a 14 point lead and the Golden Eagles took a 47-33 lead into halftime. “We didn’t take care of the ball a couple of times and turned it over at the top and they turned it into easy points and we had some lapses on offense,” said Coach Weisse.
If Northwestern had any thoughts of a comeback, they were quickly erased in the first three minutes of the second half when UMC started the half on a 15-3 run behind six points from Juhl, five points from Cleary and baskets by Collins and Gable Smith (Sr. Lodi, Wis) for a 62-36 lead. The UMC offense went cold for a few minutes and Northwestern answered with a 16-5 run and trailed 67-52, but a Nicolau dunk and layup stopped the run and the Golden Eagles cruised the rest of the way for a 104-70 victory. UMC played all 13 of their players with 11 of them scoring. “We have some depth this year,” said Coach Weisse. “I liked what we saw and I was happy Northwestern came out and gave us a great game. We only have one exhibition game so this was important for us to come out and play well and see what we need to due to get ready for the first game next weekend. I reminded the guys that we scored 105 points in our first game last year and lost, so we need to be ready next weekend.”
UMC will open the regular season when they play Arkansas Tech at noon on Saturday in a game played at Concordia-St. Paul.
Gable Smith makes a move in the post in the 2nd half
| 1 | 2 | Final | |
| Northwestern | 33 | 37 | 70 |
| UMC | 47 | 57 | 104 |
Harrison Cleary drives to the basket (Picture by Terry Tollefson/UMC Athletics)
| For UMC | Points | Rebounds | Assists/Steals |
| Harrison Cleary | 22 | 6 | 6 assists |
| Chase Knickerbocker | 17 | 8 | |
| Ben Juhl | 14 | 3 | |
| Josh Collins | 10 | 3 | |
| Brian Sitzmann | 10 | 6 | 3 assists |
| Javier Nicolau | 9 | 3 | |
| Gable Smith | 6 | 7 | 3 assists/6 steals |
| Malcom Cohen | 5 | 3 | 3 assists |
| Chase Johnson | 4 | ||
| Aaron Hollcraft | 4 | ||
| Demarion Bariffe-Smith | 3 |
