The UAA men's basketball team rallied from a huge deficit to tie the game with minutes left but couldn't cash in on the comeback Friday night at the Alaska Airlines Center.
Northwood University beat the Seawolves 83-77 on the first day of the two-day Seawolf Jamboree. In Friday's other game, Lake Superior State dropped UAF, 85-63.
UAA and UAF will switch opponent Saturday, with the Seawolves playing Lake Superior State at 5 p.m. The Nanooks play at noon.
Tyler Brimhall, a junior transfer, continued to produce for UAA, scoring a game-high 23 points on 9-of-16 shooting and grabbing a game-high 10 rebounds.
Travis Adams, a freshman from Utqiagvik, hit double figures for the first time with 13 points; Nico Bevens, another junior transfer, added 11; and Brian Pearson, a returning big man, chipped in eight rebounds, seven points and two blocks.
Six players hit double figures for Northwood, a Division II team from Michigan. Ja'Kavien Lewis powered the Timberwolves (1-2) with 14 points, nine assists and seven rebounds.
UAA trailed by as many as 17 in the first half and entered the second half down by 13, 46-33.
A pair of freshmen helped UAA tie the game 71-71 with four minutes left. Tobin Karlberg, a Grace Christian grad, scored a layup off a pass from Brimhall to make it 71-68, and then Adams scored a traditional three-point play — driving for a bucket, drawing a foul, hitting the free throw — to make it 71-71.
The Timberwolves answered with an unusual four-point play that gave them the lead for good. Jack Ammerman sank one of his four 3-pointers at the same time Pearson fouled Northwood's David Jelinek, who hit a free throw for a 75-71 lead. With a little more than two minutes to go, Northwood all but sealed the win with a 3-pointer by Tanner Reha that gave the visitors a 78-71 lead.
UAA clawed back to narrow the gap to 80-77 on a Pearson basket with 17 seconds left, but those were its final points.
The Seawolves shot 46.4 percent from the field, with Adams hitting 4 of 5 shots and Karlberg going 3 of 4 for seven points. Brimhall and Bevens were both 3 of 6 from 3-point range, but the rest of the team was 1 of 7.