Although the score differential was greater than last year, it wasn't as easy of a win.

In 2010, the NAU men's basketball team cruised to a 96-86 victory over Western New Mexico in its exhibition opener. On Thursday the score was 93-71, but NAU coach Mike Adras pointed out it wasn't nearly as relaxed.

"I think that was hard for us," Adras said. "I don't think that was easy for us. A year ago, that was easy for us. (Wednesday) was hard. We had to fight to do what we did and we need to learn that if do that in practice, (the game) would be easier for us."

With nine new Lumberjacks on the roster, things won't be getting easy any time soon. Adras has spent plenty of practice time going over the basics and trying to simplify things for his inexperienced squad. On Thursday, they kept things simple and it worked well, for the most part. The Jacks built a 16-point lead at halftime and extended it before the final buzzer.

But the youthfulness of this year's Jacks showed up consistently. There were plenty of nerves and extended lapses that kept Western New Mexico in the game early on. Almost every positive play came with a negative reaction -- a steal on one end on the court led to a turnover on the other as the Jacks had 21 turnovers to the Mustangs' 20.

"We can't score at this end and give it right back on the other end," Adras said. "We have to score and get a stop ... now you're accomplishing something."

But Adras was happy, overall, as the newcomers showed plenty of potential in their debut. Junior forward Ephraim Ekanem provided NAU with a solid post presence -- a big question mark entering the season -- and led the Jacks with 16 points and 10 rebounds.

"It was a good way to start but we still have a long way to go," Ekanem said. "I don't really think I proved anything -- we all know how we can play -- it shows how hard we go in practice ... I crashed (the boards) and I got rewarded for it."

Fellow post player and sophomore transfer Max Jacobsen added 10 points and three rebounds.

"I thought they did a pretty good job," Adras said of his two new forwards. "I was really happy with what those guys did, but we were the bigger team (Wednesday), so they should have dominated. How are they going to do when we're not the bigger guys. That's going to be the key because that's going to happen to us."

In all, five Jacks scored in double figures. Six-foot freshman guard James Douglas had 15 points, including a fully-extended dunk, freshman Colin Gruber added 12 points and showed a long-range shooting touch while redshirt freshman Gaellen Bewernick had 10 points and nine rebounds.

Virtually all of them had to settle down, however. Adras took notice of the Jacks' nerves and excused some of the early mishaps as a result of playing their first Division-I basketball game.

"That's the growing we'll have to try to get through as the season progresses," Adras said. "It's probably a great thing that we played (Wednesday) because now (the nervousness) dissipates."

Adras then harped on his squad's intensity in practice. If the Jacks can play each other with the fervor they save for opponents, things will get easier once the games start counting on Nov. 11.

"I felt like we were prepared by practicing hard, but obviously once you get on that floor, your adrenaline starts pumping," Gruber said. "I was a little jittery ... it was a big rush."

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