GREAT FALLS, Mont. – An anemic offensive effort in the first half put the University of Providence men's basketball team in a hole it couldn't climb out off in a 63-51 loss to Montana State University-Northern. UP only scored 15 points in the first 20 minutes but pulled within 6 points with a minute and a half left before Northern closed the game with good free-throw shooting. UP outscored the Lights 36-31 in the second half.
 
Through the first 20 minutes of the game, UP's offense just couldn't get it together. The Argos shot 31 percent from the field, 25 percent from the free-throw line, and went 0-3 from 3-point range. Not only was shooting a struggle but so was ball movement, with UP turning it over 9 times.
 
Defensively, the Argos didn't play poorly. They held MSUN to 44 percent shooting from the field and just 3-13 from three, but that wasn't nearly enough to balance the struggles on the other end. By the time the first half ended UP trailed by more points than it scored, with the total at 32-15 Northern.
 
The first possession of the second half set a completely different tone. Senior guard Jared Schultz nailed the team's first three of the game just 12 seconds into the half and UP would go on to score each of the next two buckets to pull within 10 points with over 17 minutes to go.
 
Northern answered back and with under 10 minutes remaining, the lead was back to 17 points at 47-30. Over the next six minutes, the Argos slowly chipped away at that lead and at the 3:30 mark, a layup from sophomore Quesly-Marie Noresias brought the lead to single digits for the first time since three minutes to go in the first half.
 
The lead hovered between a point or two above and below 10 until senior guard DuShaun Rice hit 2 free throws and then stole the ball on Northern's trip down the floor, taking it the other way for a transition layup.
 
His effort brought the score to 59-53 with 1:36 left in the game, and suddenly the Argos had real hope of completing a huge comeback.
 
UP fouled on the next possession and the Lights hit both shots. The Argos tried to trade 2 points for 3 with a shot from behind the arc from senior guard Matthew Brooks-McGregor but his effort missed, and the Lights killed some clock before score another 2 points to essentially end the game.
 
Only two Argos eclipsed 10 points in the game with no one else score more than 5. The first was Rice who finished with a  team leading  15 points, a  team leading  2 steals, and 6 rebounds which tied for the team lead.
 
The other was Noresias, a guard who most of the year has earned playing time because of his defensive effort and abilities but has turned into the team's more efficient scorer in the last five games. Before UP's game against Lewis-Clark State College on February 8, Noresias was averaging 3.3 points per game. Since then, he is shooting 73 percent from the floor on 26 shot attempts and is averaging 9.4 ppg.
 
In the game against Northern, he finished with 10 points on 5-8 shooting in 21 minutes on the floor.
 
With the loss, UP's record falls to 11-16 (5-12). The Argos currently sit a game and a half ahead of Montana Tech to stay out of  last  place in the Frontier Conference, but if Tech wins its next game, the final two spots in the conference will come down to the final game of the season. The Argos will play the Orediggers on Saturday, February 24 at 7:30 p.m.