ANCHORAGE (Jan. 24) - Kemmy Burgess scored 16 points and Aaron Lawrence hit the winning shot with two minutes left as the UAA men's basketball team survived a major scare from Seattle University, 52-51 at the Wells Fargo Sports Complex tonight.
The Seawolves (14-4, 4-3 GNAC) made up for their 20 turnovers by outrebounding the Redhawks 38-28 and holding the visitors to 32 percent shooting. Seattle (6-10, 2-5) was led by guard Bim Makinde's 10 points and six rebounds.
Josh Evans came off the bench to score six points in the first half, including a buzzer-beating 25-footer to give UAA a 32-23 lead at the break. The Seawolves opened up their largest lead at 39-27 with 15 minutes left, but the Redhawks slowly chipped away and took their first lead, 46-45, on center Nic Lano's basket with 8:11 remaining.
UAA answered with consecutive layups by Adam Fitt-Chappell and Burgess to make it 49-46, but Seattle rebounded its own missed free throw and Makinde hit a floater in the lane, knotting it at 49.
With the shot clock running down on UAA's next possession, Lawrence took a pass from Blaine Durrant at the top of the key and swished a three-pointer. Makinde answered with another driving bucket at the 1:34 mark, the final basket off the game.
With just over a minute left, SU's Jeffrey McDaniel stole the ball from Adam Simpson and drove downcourt, drawing a hard foul from Burgess. The Redhawks' leading scorer missed both free throws, however, and UAA took possession.
Burgess was called for a charge with 37 seconds left, fouling out after shooting 7 for 14 and pulling down four rebounds.
On Seattle's last possession, Makinde drove baseline against Jesse Brown with the clock under 10 seconds. As the 6-2 guard went up for his shot, Lawrence snuck around and stripped the ball loose. After a scramble, the ball went out of bounds with 3.2 seconds on the game clock and two seconds on the shot clock.
Inbounding from deep on his own sideline, SU's Ryan Webb tried a cross-court pass to Kevin Harrison that flew high and went out of bounds untouched.
UAA got the ensuing inbounds pass to Mark Drake, who avoided a foul and dished to Geoffrey Agmata to run out the clock.
Peter Bullock scored 10 points and grabbed a game-high eight rebounds, but UAA's leading scorer committed five turnovers, missed four of six free throws and was held 11 points under his scoring average.
UAA, whose last three wins have come by a total of six points, hits the road for a three-game stretch beginning Jan. 29 at Saint Martin's (6 p.m. AST).
