AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo.—What a difference a day made for the Air Force men’s basketball team.
Twenty-four hours after scoring the most points (95) they’d had in more than 10 years, the Falcons were 0-for-17 from 3-point range and shot just 32.6 percent from the field in a 70-46 loss to Northern Colorado in the championship game of the Reggie Minton Air Force Classic in front of 5,858 at Clune Arena Saturday night.
Devon Beitzel had a season-high 26 points to lead the Bears (5-0), who snapped a 12-game losing streak to Air Force (2-1). It was Northern Colorado’s first win over the Falcons in more than 50 years, with its last win coming on Feb. 16, 1957.
“I’m really pleased with our effort,” Northern Colorado coach Tad Boyle said. “We were walking in quicksand last night and had what I called our ‘Hawaii hangover,’ but tonight we bounced back and had our legs again. We’re a deep team, and I think it showed. We kind of wore them down tonight.”
The Bears defeated Hawaii 81-75 on Nov. 16 to win the Hawaii Rainbow Classic in Honolulu and have now won five games in eight days.
Beitzel had half of the Bears’ eight 3-pointers, with those 24 points from beyond the arc representing the final scoring difference in the game. Air Force failed to connect on a 3-pointer (0-for-17) for the first time since Dec. 4, 1991, a stretch of 512 games.
“Everyone on our team can knock down threes, and we did a good job of getting after their shooters,” said Beitzel, the tournament’s most valuable player. “We played great on defense tonight and executed our game plan almost to a T. We’ve got a ton of scorers on our team, but tonight was just my night.”
Nothing seemed to work for Air Force, who committed 17 turnovers and was out-rebounded 41-31. Northern Colorado scored the first 12 points of the game, with Air Force’s first basket not coming until the 14:08 mark.
“You have to give them credit, they defended us really well and took us out of our offense, and on the other side, we couldn’t defend them,” Air Force coach Jeff Reynolds said. “I felt like we were really flat, and that’s my job. They knocked us back on our heels with their aggressiveness, and our shots that were open, they felt like they were a little bit rushed. We have a young team and they showed their youthfulness tonight.”
A night after a perfect 6-for-6 shooting performance, Falcons leading scorer Grant Parker was held to one point on 0-of-10 shooting, including an 0-of-7 mark from 3-point range. Evan Washington led Air Force with 14 points.
“Northern Colorado is a really good team, and I just think we caught them at a bad time when they had everything rolling,” Washington said. “We didn’t do a good job of recognizing who their shooters and non-shooters were, and they picked us apart. At this point in the season, we’re still trying to figure out what type of team we are.”
