Lopers Down Former RMAC Rival, 87-73

Five players scored in double figures and Nebraska Kearney sunk 12 three pointers to down Regis, 87-73, Thursday night in Denver.

An old Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference (RMAC) rivalry, UNK improves to 6-5 while the Rangers fall to 1-7. The Lopers now lead the all-time series by a healthy 31-7 margin.

With leading scorer Ja'Bryant Hill (17.5 ppg, 5.6 apg, 3.1 rpg) unavailable, the Lopers had to rally and did so thanks to 37 bench points. They also went 12 of 29 from downtown; on Tuesday, the Lopers sunk 14 of 29 threes to defeat Chadron State by five.

The tightly contested first half had several key UNK players in foul trouble including redshirt junior forward Anthony Swift (Las Vegas) and redshirt sophomore wing Clayton Moore (Mullen). The Lopers overcame that by having nine in the scoring column, hitting six treys and being plus seven in second chance points. Up 43-40 at the break, the Blue & Gold never trailed in the second half as they started on a 10-0 run. That featured six consecutive points from Moore (a three and an old-fashioned three) and buckets from Swift and senior wing Kendrick Gilbert (St. Louis). The spurt was part of an 18-0 stretch as UNK tallied the final eight points in the first half. 

Regis had four reach double digits but had just 15 bench points and was only 6 of 22 from deep. They trailed by as many as 21 in the second half and only led for 8:41 on the night.

Moore had a career-high 17 points in just 20 minutes of work thanks to 7 of 12 (1 of 3 threes) shooting). Next, Denver senior Tom Connelly returned home and had 12 of his 15 points (5 of 7 threes) in the second half with Texas junior post Taylor Harrell at 10 points and seven boards. Finally, Gilbert was at 15 points with Swift close to a double double (nine rebounds and eight points).

Regis was led by junior Cooper Firth who had 17 of his 19 points in the first half.

"Defense is what changed the game. We let them score too easily and kind of took it personally. Number two (Firth) was the one making things happen for them, and Kendrick locked in on him," said UNK student assistant coach Allen Taylor on the KRVN Radio post-game show. "Main thing (offensively) was trusting each other. We ended up having good ball movement, good player movement so you end up with good results."

The Lopers remain in Mile High City and face Metro State Saturday afternoon. The Roadrunners (3-8) fell tonight to Fort Hays State, 68-64.