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TAHLEQUAH, Okla. – The Northeastern State men's basketball team dropped a 71-60 decision to Nebraska-Kearney Thursday evening inside the NSU Event Center.
 
Despite the loss, the RiverHawks' (6-19, 4-14 MIAA) magic number still stands at one with one game remaining in the regular season. NSU will need to defeat Fort Hays State on Saturday in order to reach the MIAA Championship as the No. 12 seed. A loss would allow Emporia State to secure the final spot in the conference tournament.
 
The game against the Tigers will begin at 3:30 p.m. Feb. 28 inside the NSU Event Center.
 
In the loss to the Lopers (17-9, 10-7 MIAA), junior forward Dakota Caudill came off the bench to lead the team with 14 points and eight rebounds. Senior guard Keon Littleton added 11 points and eight rebounds, and fellow senior guard Amir Gilliam chipped in eight points and eight boards.
 
The RiverHawks shot 34.3 percent (23-for-67) overall, 28.6 percent (4-for-14) from behind the 3-point arc and 62.5 percent (10-for-16) at the free-throw line. UNK shot 47.2 percent (25-for-53) from the field, 29.2 percent (7-for-24) from distance and 58.3 percent (14-for-24) at the charity stripe.
 
Connor Beranek paced the visitors with 25 points and nine rebounds. He also had four blocks and three assists. Trey Lansman had 19 points, eight rebounds and six blocks.
 
Nebraska-Kearney led 31-28 at halftime and opened the second half on a 15-2 run to take a
46-30 lead. NSU never got closer than nine points the rest of the way.
 
NSU led in second-chance points (19-8) and bench points (24-6), while committing fewer turnovers (12-19) and narrowly losing the rebounding battled (41-40).

NORTHEASTERN STATE COACH JASON TINSLEY
Initial Statement…
"We probably did the best job of rebounding the ball that we've done all year long. We average about 29 rebounds a game. Tonight we had 16 offensive rebounds and 24 defensive rebounds, so that is much better. But we had a lot of easy shots that we didn't convert into points. We missed so many easy baskets. We only had 12 turnovers which is good, but the turnovers that we did have were bad. There are turnovers and there are turnovers that lead to points and tonight we had turnovers that led to points. They scored 20 points off our turnovers. We had big turnovers, and they converted them. Nebraska-Kearney had a 17-4 run to start the second half and that really did us in. We did good things in our zone in the first half, but we came out in the second half and didn't play good defense. We gave up a lot of layups, we weren't flying around and we weren't communicating. I don't know why we did something different in the second half."
 
On the must-win game on Saturday...
"If we don't win we don't get in. We have to start making shots to have a chance. We have to guard for two halves, not just one. We did a good job in the first half, and we have to play like that for a whole game. For the most part we were pretty solid tonight. We put ourselves in a position to make a run in the second half. We didn't make shots and we didn't get stops. That has to change on Saturday."
 
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