The Lumberjacks have too much pride at stake to give up on their season.

Although the NAU men's basketball team is mired in a five-game losing streak, the Lumberjacks still want to send a message that they are not to be taken lightly.

That's the memo Montana State received on Saturday night. While the Bobcats (8-8 overall, 3-2 Big Sky Conference) snuck away with a 74-72 win against the Jacks (5-13, 1-5), NAU had a chance for the upset before a last second 3-point attempt by Stallon Saldivar fell short.

"Our pride kicked in," NAU junior Michael Dunn said. "We don't want to embarrass ourselves again. We want to send a message to the conference that we can compete and we can be as good as fourth or fifth best."

Regardless of the outcome, the Jacks showed new life after a 78-53 loss to Montana on Thursday. Although NAU looked out of sorts in the first half and went into the break on the wrong end of a 41-27 deficit, their full-court press kept the Jacks in the game.

"We picked up the intensity and the press helped us get a lot of easy buckets," senior Durrell Norman said. "That helped us build our confidence that we could get stops on defense."

The Jacks made a series of runs in the second half as Montana State answered almost every one until a 12-4 spurt in the final eight minutes gave the Jacks their first lead since they led 6-5 in the opening minutes.

The full-court pressure stymied the Bobcats' offense as 22 turnovers -- along with a 21 of 25 night at the free throw line -- fueled NAU's comeback.

Now they're left wondering what could have been had they played that way the entire time and not had to rely on a last second shot to win the game.

"We want to translate that second half into a full 40 minutes," Dunn said. "In the back of our minds, we know we got better today."

In the first half, the Jacks allowed the Bobcats to shoot 6 of 9 from 3-point range before their defensive pressure limited the long-range shots in the second. NAU, however, continues to struggle offensively and finished the game with 40.7 percent from the field and 20 percent from beyond the arc, including the final play, which interim head coach Dave Brown had hoped to be a different shot.

Brown said he called for a baseline runner by freshman James Douglas -- who led NAU with 13 points -- but Douglas and Gabe Rogers struggled to get open before Saldivar took a contested 3-pointer from well beyond the line.

"We could have won the game if I'd have done a little bit better coaching the ends of games," Brown said. "We didn't do a very good job down the stretch. It wasn't a very good effort to win the game."

Still, while the Jacks played significantly more inspired basketball on Saturday, they won't be satisfied until they snap their current skid.

"No one went into the hole, started dropping their head ... we really believed the entire time that we would come back and would be able to win this game," Norman said. "This is the way we should be playing, but at the end of the day, we want to walk away with a 'W'."

Jacob May can be reached at jmay@azdailysun.com or 556-2257.