Northern Arizona led for most of the first half of Thursday's Big Sky Conference game against Eastern Washington, but the Eagles slowly overcame the Jacks' lead with steady 3-point shooting to take a 74-68 come-from-behind win.
The Eagles (11-12, 5-5 BSC) shot 9-for-24 from behind the arc to steadily close on and eventually erase NAU's lead, which was 39-30 with 17 minutes and 52 seconds to play. But between Eastern's 3-point shooting and the Eagles' 25 of 34 night from the free-throw line, NAU couldn't hang on.
The Lumberjacks (5-18, 1-10 BSC) committed 24 personal fouls -- EWU had 21 and the Lumberjacks made 19 of 29 free throws -- and junior Ephraim Ekanem said the team has to be more responsible for all those little hacks.
"That's on us," he said. "We let our team down a little bit with all those fouls."
Ekanem -- who scored a career-high and team-high 15 points -- fouled out of the game, as did junior Michael Dunn and senior Durrell Norman.
Norman, who scored 11 for the Jacks, said NAU knew it was going to be a physical game, but added that the team allowed the foul calls to get to it.
"We know they're really hard in the post; they're really strong and really physical," Norman said. "We didn't put in our best effort in the post in our last game so we wanted to go out and bang with them.
"The refs seemed to let more things go in the first half, but things really slowed down in the second half," he added. "We got frustrated and that took us out of the game."
The play in the post by NAU was arguably the best it's been all season, and Ekanem attributed that to what the team does in practice every day.
"Me, Durrell, Gaellan (Bewernick), we're always working on our post game every day," he said. "We're just trying to get better and it's about time we start improving."
The Lumberjacks outscored EWU 32-18 in the paint, and NAU's 46.2 percent shooting from the floor was better than the Eagles' 35.1.
"Losing is what it is, but we're real proud of the effort our young men put fourth," interim head coach Dave Brown said. "We gave good effort."
The loss was NAU's 10th in a row, a streak that started on Dec. 31 against Northern Colorado. Norman said the team is hungrier than ever for a win, and would love nothing more than to get it at home at the end of a three-game week.
"We want to win, especially at home," he said. "We're all frustrated with how the season has gone, but I feel like we're bringing a lot more effort."
The Lumberjacks host Portland State at 6:35 p.m. Saturday.
Bill Harris can be reached at bharris@azdailysun.com or 556-2251.
