Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

Whether the Nanooks are ready or not, here they come.

The banged-up Nanooks (4-12 overall, 1-6 Great Northwest Athletic Conference) open a challenging three-game homestand today when they play host to the No. 23 Northwest Nazarene Crusaders (13-3, 5-2) at 7 p.m., then take on the No. 24 Seattle Pacific University Falcons (13-3, 5-2) on Saturday afternoon.

But the Nanooks do so with a host of issues.

• Senior guard Mike Titus might not play with a shoulder injury he suffered last week at Montana State Billings.

Titus, who has previously dealt with injuries to his other shoulder, is meeting with a family doctor to assess his basketball future, according to Alaska coach Clemon Johnson.

“He’s afraid of physical contact right now. Last year he had surgery on his right shoulder to repair that one and now the left one’s starting to pop out,” Johnson said. “So we’re trying to make a decision with his health. He understands that hey, he’s probably not looking at a future in basketball, but he’s got a future. We want to make sure he’s going to be able to be functional with his shoulders and his arms and that. So if he has to call it quits, we’ll do so.”

• Guard Travis Pew will try to play despite having an ulcer that prevented him from traveling with the team last week.

• Forward Mladen Begojevic will attempt to play through a knee injury that the Nanooks are still searching for the cause of.

• Guard Bobby Pico still has a bad back.

• Guard DeRay Carger is suffering from what Johnson termed a “buttocks problem.”

• Point guard Kevin Campbell has a sore hamstring.

• Forward David Cannamore, who Johnson called his No. 2 man off the bench at this point, is playing through tendonitis in his knee.

“Yeah, we’re banged up, but once again, that’s not our reason for playing badly,” said Johnson, whose team is riding a five-game slide. “Now, last couple of games we’ve been playing very strong but we don’t have the numbers to do what we want to do.

“But the game has to be played and we’re preparing for it. We’re putting in some new things because we’re finding out that teams know our plays better than we do at this stage.”

Adding to Johnson’s frustration is that his team has been unable to get to the free-throw line of late — an area Northwest Nazarene excels in.

“It’s not worked for us. I’m trying to figure out the reason for that,” Johnson said. “I don’t want to say anything that’s going to get me fined … but every game we’ve been in so far has been a 3-to-1 (free throw) ratio (against us).”

It’s gotten to the point that Johnson sent an e-mail to the league asking for a referee to come to practice and explain what will and won’t be called a foul.

“When the ball’s thrown inside, my guys are actually getting out of the way just so they don’t get a foul called on them,” he said. “Needless to say, you’ll never win a basketball game that way.”

Freshman Kendall Gielow leads the Crusaders — nationally ranked for the first time in school history — with 15.3 points per game, while point speedy guard Tyler Roberts scores 11.8 points a game and has a team-high 31 steals.

Seattle Pacific, meanwhile, will bring tough defense to the Patty Center. The Falcons hold opponents to 44 percent shooting and have forced 241 turnovers this season.

“It’s a man-to-man, a they’re-in-your-face type press (not a full-court press). They’re challenging you as an individual ball player to beat them, and that’s where the turnovers are coming,” Johnson said. “If you’ve got pressure on you all the time, you’re going to make some mistakes.”

What the Nanooks won’t do is lay back against either defense. Despite their short bench, the Nanooks are scrapping the slow and steady strategy they’ve employed that last few games in favor of the running game they started the season with.

“We’ve got seven people and we’re going to go back to running. We’re going to go back to running, we’re going to have to use up all our timeouts, we’ll just have to foul people to get a breather wherever we can,” Johnson said. “Reason being, I’ve tried slowing the ball down and that hasn’t worked for us. We feel that if we run, at least we’re doing something that I know and I enjoy, they players love and they enjoy, maybe the fans get behind it, and on top of that, when the recruits see us running up and down the court we’ll attract more attention that way.”

Women’s road trip

While the men hold court at the Patty Center, the Alaska women try to snap a skid of their own on the road.

And there might not be a better time to do it.

The Nanooks (8-7, 1-6), who have lost six of seven since conference play began, travel to the Central Washington Wildcats (10-5, 2-5) for a 4:30 p.m. contest today and Western Washington Vikings (4-15, 1-6) on Saturday.

The Wildcats have dropped five of their last six while the Vikings are losers of nine of their last 10.

Central Washington has four players averaging at least 11 points a game.

The Vikings are led by freshman guard Amanda Dunbar with 14 points per game.

While the Nanooks offense has been sputtering of late — their shooting is down to 40 percent — Sheena Brown has had the hot hand.

After scoring 30 points last week against Alaska Anchorage, Brown ranks second among GNAC scorers with 18.7 points a game, trailing Montana State Billings’ Alira Carpenter by one point.

Contact staff writer Adam Raeder at 459-7583.