UAA Athletics

With its top player turned back at the Canadian border, UAA men’s basketball team falls to Simon Fraser

With their leading scorer and rebounder stuck on the U.S. side of the border, the UAA men’s basketball team came out on the short end of a high-scoring game Thursday night in Burnaby, British Columbia.

The short-handed Seawolves suffered a 92-81 loss to Simon Fraser in a Great Northwest Athletic Conference game.

Oggie Pantovic, a junior forward from Serbia, wasn’t able to accompany the team “due to administrative issues at the U.S.-Canada border crossing,” according to a press release from the school. No other details were immediately available.

UAA also played without senior forward Tyler Brimhall, who didn’t make the road trip, which continues with a Saturday game at Western Washington.

Simon Fraser shot 56% from the field and got 22 points from Michael Provenzano to improve to 13-9 overall and 6-7 in the GNAC.

UAA fell to 14-10, 7-6.

Four players hit double figures for the Seawolves, who were 15 of 31 from 3-point range but were badly outrebounded, 39-22.

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Niko Bevens poured in 19 points on 6-of-11 shooting and Tobin Karlberg had 17 on 6-of-13 shooting.

The performance of the night came from senior guard Jack Macdonald, who had a perfect shooting night. His 16 points came on 6-of-6 shooting, including 4 of 4 from 3-point range.

Karlberg added five assists and Tyrus Hosley had four to go with 13 points and five rebounds.

UAA grabbed an early 17-9 lead but the Clan came back to take a 48-46 halftime lead with a layup right before the buzzer. A 9-0 run early in the second half put Simon Fraser in the lead for good.

“I thought our guys showed tremendous fight tonight,” UAA coach Rusty Osborne said in a release for the school. “Having to play ‘small’ and change our game plan at the last minute, every man out there really stepped up his game. Unfortunately, we couldn’t capitalize on our fast start without being able to get some key rebounds.”

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