ANCHORAGE – Junior forward Niko Bevens had 12 points and a career-high nine rebounds, but the Alaska Anchorage men's basketball team could not hold onto a second-half lead Thursday in a 67-56 loss to Montana State Billings at the Alaska Airlines Center.

With the loss in their regular-season finale, the Seawolves (14-14, 9-11) are likely eliminated from contention for a spot in the six-team Great Northwest Athletic Conference Tournament, set for next week in Bellingham, Wash.

The Yellowjackets (14-13, 9-10) got 16 points and 11 rebounds from reserve guard Kobe Terashima as they outscored UAA 25-9 over the final eight and a half minutes to sweep the season series and leapfrog the Seawolves in the standings.

"We played well defensively for one half, but that wasn't enough on a night when our shooters weren't making shots," said UAA head coach Rusty Osborne. "Congrats to Billings. They out-executed us down the stretch.

"Despite the disappointing way we've finished, I think our young team really grew from the beginning to the end of the season, and our program shows a lot of promise for the future. Mostly, I really want to thank our two seniors (Brian Pearson and Matt Seymour) and Sjur Berg – who will graduate this spring and forego his senior season – for all they did for the program. They've been tremendous representatives of UAA, the city of Anchorage and Alaska. They excelled in the classroom, gave back to the community hundreds of hours of service and helped us to many memorable victories. I will personally miss my daily interaction with all three of them greatly."

UAA led 11-1 in the early going and took a 29-24 lead into halftime as junior forward Tyler Brimhall scored 10 of his 13 points in the opening stanza.

Zack Rollins gave the visitors their first lead of the night, 37-36, on a three-pointer at the 13:29 mark as the lead would change six times over the next three minutes. The Seawolves seemed to take control on back-to-back layups by Sjur Berg for a 47-42 advantage, but they would go cold from the field while the Yellowjackets heated up.

Brendan Howard tied it 47-47 on a layup with 7:40 remaining and added another to put his team ahead for good. UAA trailed 55-49 after Bevens got his team back on the board with two free throws before MSUB scored the next six points to pull away.

The Yellowjackets outshot the Seawolves .731 (19 of 26) to .391 (9 of 23) in the second half and earned a 37-32 rebounding edge for the game.