UNC's Historic Season Finally Ends In CIT Quarters

Will Figures looks for an opening during Monday's loss to Pacific in the CBI quarterfinals. Figures, a senior, played in his final game for UNC.

Photo by Mike Laughlin, Mile High Hoops

GREELEY—The Northern Colorado Bears simply refused to let the school’s best-ever basketball season come to an end.

But, after a UNC-record 25 wins and two additional games as part of  the CollegeInsider.com postseason tournament, the record-setting year did end with a 63-59 loss in the CIT quarterfinals to the University of the Pacific.

“We took a lot of strides this year. It was a great year but this is not the way we wanted it to end,” said junior forward Chris Kaba, who led the Bears in their final game with 17 points. “We have three seniors and this was their last collegiate game. We can’t take that back.”

For UNC’s seniors, it was not the finale they had likely envisioned.

Will Figures and Yahosh Bonner, both senior starters for the team, shot a combined 1-13 from the field for six points. (The third senior, Ben Jenkins, did not play).

“It was a sub-par night,” Bonner said. “I played hard, felt like I gave it all for my team. All the guys did that.”

Pacific led for most of the night, one in which the Bears struggled to score, shooting only 34 percent.

The Bears kept themselves in it with effort and hustle, tying the game at 39, then again at 48 midway through the second half.

UNC was playing without their main offensive weapon, guard Devon Beitzel, who missed the season’s end with a foot injury, and the Bears were unable to come up with the big shots in the end as Pacific pulled away.

“We never could get over the hump,” UNC head coach Tad Boyle said. “We got good looks, but we didn’t knock them down at key times. We did battle back though.”

Boyle said he told his team that he felt sorry for the three seniors, since their careers at UNC were over, but only those three. He said the rest of the team has a lot to look forward too, starting tomorrow when the next season begins. Boyle also spoke to the crowd- 2,588 at a packed Butler-Hancock Arena- after the game, saying over a loudspeaker that this season was only the beginning.

“This was a heck of a year for our basketball program, one of those years, you don’t want to see it end,” Boyle said. “I’m as proud of this group of guys as I have been of anyone in my career… They set the standard for other teams to aspire to.”

This year’s Bears team (25-8) did finish with the most wins in school history, beating out the 1988-1989 team (24-6), and spent the majority of the season ranked in the CollegeInsider.com national mid-major poll.

Looking forward to next year, the Bears bring back four major players, all rising seniors: Kaba, Beitzel, Taylor Montgomery, and Neal Kingman. But they will have to work to replace the leadership and energy of Bonner and Figures.  

“It was definitely hard, seeing these guys and knowing this is my last time on the court,” Figures said. “I’ll remember the laughs in the locker room, the hard work in practice, and most of all, I’ll remember these crowds. You saw the crowd out there, it wasn’t like this when I got here… we changed a lot of things in Greeley.”

Contact the writer at mlaughlin@milehighhoops.com