Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

With his team mired in a losing streak, Alaska interim coach Clemon Johnson made a decision — the Nanooks are a running team, and he was going to turn them loose, short bench or not.

Thursday night, the scheme worked just how he hoped it would.

The Nanooks were energized on both ends of the court, forcing turnovers and getting to the basket.

But no scheme could give Johnson any extra bodies, and eventually it caught up with the Nanooks as they fell 76-63 to the No. 23 Northwest Nazarene Crusaders in a Great Northwest Athletic Conference contest at the Patty Center.

“This is a nationally ranked team and we came out tonight and played basketball like I know we’re capable of playing,” Johnson said. “I spoke to you earlier in the week, I told you we were going to play fast break basketball. We fall out, we fall out. Unfortunately, that’s what happened down the stretch — guys’ legs were gone.”

While the Crusaders (14-3 overall, 6-2 GNAC) held the lead wire to wire, the Nanooks (4-13, 1-7) never let them get too far ahead, reeling them back in every time the Crusaders looked to put the game away.

But when the Nanooks looked to stop them from pulling away one last time, Alaska’s bench got even shorter with guard Mike Titus leaving the game with an injury and center Kevin Atkins fouling out on back-to-back plays.

“You lose Titus, on the floor he’s your leader, he’s the guy who’s able to keep everything stable,” Johnson said. “Atkins, needless to say, is our rebounder. Once we started missing those two individuals, yes, our bench got even shorter at that point.”

It proved too much for the Nanooks to overcome, as they dropped their sixth straight game.

“We just have to take the part where we did play well, we played together, and then bring it to practice and bring it to the next game,” Atkins said. “Hopefully, we’ll put a full game together then.”

Against a taller, deeper Crusaders squad, the up-tempo Nanooks were able to hold tough until the end.

After Northwest Nazarene jumped out to an early 10-point lead, the Nanooks were poised to take a three-point deficit into halftime until Crusaders forward Jason Simmons knocked down a 3-pointer at the buzzer.

Alaska, playing tough man-to-man defense, held the Crusaders to 12-of-32 (37.5 percent) shooting in the first half, 10 points below their season average.

“You give credit to the other team for defending you well,” Northwest Nazarene coach Tim Hills said. “Some of our choices weren’t that good, they forced us into some turnovers that were uncharacteristic to our team. They played well defensively and gave us fits.”

Joel Ryman’s 3-pointer from the right wing gave the Crusaders a 50-39 lead, but the Nanooks found another run in them, cutting the deficit to 58-54 on Atkins’ three-point play.

“I like it. It’s better, but we’ve just got to get in better condition,” Atkins said of the running style. “We’ve got to run harder in practice to get ready for the game.”

After Kendall Gielow’s jumper extended the lead back to six, Titus went down on the next possession, taking a knee to the thigh while attempting a layup in traffic.

He was also whistled for a charge.

“He got kneed on his thigh, and he’s kind of small so there’s no protection like the big meat I have on my legs,” Johnson said. “He’s bruised up pretty bad; he’s limping.”

Two free throws from Mladen Begojevic, who played 18 minutes and tallied 15 points on an injured knee, pulled the Nanooks within four, 62-58, a minute later. But they’d get no closer.

Atkins finished with his fourth double-double of the season, collecting a team-high 17 points and 10 rebounds. Colin Matteson added 13 points thanks to a 9-of-10 effort from the free-throw line.

Justin Parnell, last year’s GNAC Freshman of the Year, shrugged off the lingering effects of a knee injury suffered on opening night to score a game-high 21 points on 8-of-13 shooting.

“In the last two weeks, two and a half weeks, we’ve seen signs of him (coming back),” Hills said. “I’ve just been waiting for him to have a game like he had tonight.”

Johnson could say the same about his entire team.

“I told the guys inside (the locker room) they played well, and I can take that. They gave me the effort tonight, whereas in the past we were getting blown out by 20, 22 points by nonranked teams,” he said. “We played tonight. (Nazarene) had to walk away with this game in the last 4, 5 minutes of the ball game, and like I said before, that was because we were dead. Our legs were dead.”

Contact staff writer Adam Raeder at 459-7583.