The UAF basketball team tromped Saint Martin's and narrowly defeated Western Oregon last weekend.

The Nanooks beat first place Saint Martin's 75-67 on Thursday following an on-the-road loss to the squad earlier this season. Then on Satuday, junior Kenny Barker scored a three-pointer in the last four seconds to defeat Western Oregon 79-76 at the Patty Center.The matches make the Nanooks 15-8 overall and 6-3 in conference play.

In its match-up against Saint Martin's, leading scorer Jushay Rockett suffered foul trouble.

But Barker and Mike Titus helped puck up the slack. Barker scored a game-high 24 points and earned player of the game honors. Titus had 17 points and six boards.

"Anytime you diagram something and then execute it perfectly, you've got to feel good," head coach Frank Ostanik said in a statement. "We have a hard time with that at times with just the average play but to do it right at a critical juncture in the game was the difference between winning and losing tonight."

The Nanooks pulled-off the most boards 37-32 and made 19 offensive rebounds. Center Steven Sandles grabbed five rebounds on top of scoring 11 points.

On Saturday, Baker led the Nanooks to their win over Western Oregon with 22 points and 12 rebounds. Rockett nailed 28 points, eight boards and three steals.

"We looked at it as an elimination game," Ostanik said.

"If we lost, it would've been very hard to dig ourselves out of that hole. That's how we're winning now. We're hanging around until the half and making it a 20-minute game without foul trouble. I was very concerned that there was a stretch where we couldn't score but Kenny Barker took care of that for us," Ostanik added.

The Nanooks began strong with an early 10-point lead nine minutes in. But the Wolves fought back and overtook UAF at 3:30 left in the first half. Western Oregon led by six at the half.

"In my time as a head coach that's probably the most upset I've been," Ostanik said. "At halftime I just couldn't believe in such an important game that we would be that bad. It wasn't one person. We lacked focus and when things got tough, we went our separate ways. I let them know that at halftime and I thought they responded the right way."

UAF began a comeback defensively as Western Oregon slowed down. Nanook junior Barry Barnes, Jr. forced 11 of Western's 16 turnovers. Barker scored the final three points for the win.