UAA men’s basketball suffers third straight loss after blowing double-digit lead to UAF

After a back-and-forth start in which both teams were matching the other bucket for bucket, the University of Alaska Anchorage men’s basketball team appeared to be in firm control and well on its way to getting back on track at home against in-state rival University of Alaska Fairbanks on Saturday night at the Alaska Airlines Center.

The Seawolves built their first double-digit lead in the first half and led by nine points heading at halftime and came out of the locker room firing on all cylinders for the first 10-plus minutes of the second half. They led by as many as 19 points with just over nine minutes left to play as it looked like their two-game losing skid would be coming to an end.

But the Nanooks didn’t quit chipping away while UAA couldn’t find a way to execute on either end of the court, as UAF stormed back for a 76-74 win. The game marked the Seawolves’ third straight loss to drop their overall record to 10-10 and 3-4 against Great Northwest Athletic Conference foes.

“We played very well for 29 minutes and unfortunately it’s a 48-minute game and I think that we got a little happy with ourselves after we got the big lead and stopped playing,” UAA head coach Rusty Osborne said. “This is a conference game. Teams aren’t going to stop playing, especially teams with pride and they have a lot of pride. They kept banging at it and we didn’t match their intensity and execute down the stretch.”

With one second left on the clock, UAA had a chance to snatch back victory from the jaws of defeat on what would’ve been a buzzer-beater for the win by junior guard Tyler Burraston from behind the arc. While Burraston wasn’t able to get the shot to fall, he was a big reason why UAA got out a big lead in the first place after draining seven of his first 10 3-pointers before missing his last four attempts.

“We got a shot but we didn’t execute the play,” Osborne said. “We relaxed mentally and up to that point to the 10 or 11 minute mark, we were locked in. We made so many mental mistakes down that last 10 minutes that allowed them to get easy baskets and cost us effective possessions.”

Burraston tied his career-high for points in a single game by leading the team with a game-high 23. He was followed by former Bartlett standout Bishop Tosi, who scored 17 points — 11 of which came in the first half alone. The other two Seawolves who reached double figures in scoring was former Bettye Davis East Anchorage standout Hasaan Herrington with 11 points and senior guard Sean Evans with 10 points.

“When we play offense pretty well, we don’t defend for some reason and when we’re struggling offensively, we really defend and we haven’t been able to put both aspects of the game together too often,” Osborne said. “We did some good things offensively for the first 30 minutes and we stopped defending and stopped rebounding which is part of defense.”

Saturday’s game also served as a homecoming of sorts for a former Seawolf player-turned-coach Tobin Karlberg, who is in his first year as an assistant on the UAF staff. This marked his first time being on the opposite bench of the coaches who recruited him and further enhanced his knowledge of the game during his four years and three seasons with the UAA program from 2018-2022.

“It means a lot but really just for where this group is at right now in the GNAC, we kept telling them all week this is a chance to take a step forward and separate ourselves from the pack and we’re excited,” Karlberg said. “We tell them all the time to ‘stay the course and stay together’ and we tried to do that at a high level tonight and I’m just proud of the guys.”

Born and raised in Anchorage, Karlberg starred at Grace Christian high school and played the bulk of his collegiate career for the Green and Gold before finishing up at Point Loma Nazarene. From there, he jumped right into coaching. He focused on keeping the Nanooks’ players motivated and locked in after falling behind by nearly 20 points.

“I told the guys when we were down 16 with eight minutes to go ‘We’re really a stop and a score away from being back in it,’ and a minute and five seconds later it was a nine-point game,” he said. “That seven-point run was huge for us.”

Osborne has a long history with Karlberg and said he’ll be rooting for his former player to succeed anytime their respective teams aren’t facing off on the same court.

“Tob is making his way in the profession and we’ll always be big fans of his,” Osborne said. “He’s a Seawolf but now he’s a competitor and we’re trying to beat him. I hope he goes on and has a great career as a coach but we’re going to try to beat him every time we play him but we came up short tonight.”