Photo by Kortnie Westfall
Mladen Begojevic defends against an Oregon State player in the Top of the World Classic in November. Begojevic led the Nanooks this weekend against UAA with 25 points.

Despite a 25-point effort from Mladen Begojevic and cycling in players to keep them fresh, fatigue got the best of the men’s basketball team in Saturday’s 67-53 loss against in-state rivals, the University of Alaska Anchorage Seawolves.

The Seawolves are No. 1 in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, and ranked fifth nationally among Division II teams.

“We played the number one team in this conference, and a top 25 team in the nation to the best of our ability, we just ran out of steam,” said head coach Clemon Johnson, “There were points where we may have forced one or two shots … but that happens when fatigue sets in.”

Johnson cycled in bench players from the beginning of the game in an effort to avoid burning out, but it wasn’t enough. “We pushed them out as far and as hard as we could during this week to try to get as much as we possibly could out of them, but the legs just kind of gave away here, so we’re still trying to find that fine line,” he said, “It wasn’t a punishment thing for us, running them in practice, but it was a point that they knew that we weren’t satisfied.”

Despite the Seawolves’ high ranking and fast play, the Nanooks played with the wolves, and even led most of the first half. The Nanooks were only shooting 33 percent, but it kept them ahead until the last few minutes of the half. Going into the break, Anchorage had a 30-21 lead on the Nanooks.

“The game plan was in place, we did well, we just ran out of steam,” Johnson said, “right around the end of the first quarter going into the second they came up, and they kind of got away from us, and we’ve got to try to climb that hill. We just don’t have the offensive power right now to come back from a 20 point deficit.”

In the second quarter, the Nanooks ramped up their shooting efforts and kept the deficit from gaining too much.

Begojevic, though suffering from knee and back injuries, led the Nanooks with his 25-point effort. “The man was barely walking, but he shoots the heck out of the basketball doesn’t he?” said Johnson. Junior Colin Matteson had 10 points for the Nanooks, and Kevin Atkins had six points and was the game-leader with 12 rebounds.

Anchorage’s two big players, McCade Olsen and Carl Arts led their team to their 17th straight win with 19 and 17 points, respectively. The two also led their team on the defensive end of the court, grabbing five and seven defensive rebounds each.

Johnson recognized the chemistry between the two senior forwards: “They remind me of playground bullies. That’s exactly what they are; they’re playground bullies, and that’s how they play. They push you around, they shove you around and they know how to play and you can tell they’ve been playing together for a very long time because they just seem to know where the other person’s going to be. They’re a perfect tandem, like a Batman and Robin kind of thing.”

This weekend, the team hits the road to face Central Washington and Western Washington.