OMAHA, Neb. - Tony Osburn matched a season-high with 27 points and reached a career milestone during Omaha's 90-79 win over North Dakota on Thursday at Baxter Arena.
Osburn, a senior guard who has started the past four years, became the 45th player in program history to surpass 1,000 points. He now has 1,013 points.
"This is a game I needed, I've been a little underwhelming so far (this season)," Osburn said. "This was a good time to get going, and other guys stepped up as well."
On a night when Omaha (8-10, 1-2 Summit) was very efficient shooting the ball,
Paul Djobet added 18 points and 12 rebounds. For the night, Omaha shot 60 percent from the field and 80 percent from the foul line.
Omaha led throughout the second half. North Dakota pulled within five with less than four minutes left, but Omaha hit 11 of 15 free throws in the final 1:32 to secure its first league win this season.
Needing 14 points to reach 1,000 for his Maverick career, Osburn wasted no time in reaching that milestone.
Osburn scored 14 of Omaha's first 16 points as he was 5 of 6 from the field in the first six minutes. That included four 3-pointers, capped by two threes from the left wing on back-to-back possessions. That gave Omaha a 16-11 lead.
North Dakota briefly took a lead before an 11-2 run gave Omaha a 39-27 lead.
Omaha hit its last six shots from the field in the first half as the Mavs were shooting a blistering 78.3 percent (18 of 23) at halftime. When
Ja'Sean Glover connected with
Christian Richardson for an alley-oop dunk with 10 seconds left, Omaha's lead was 47-38 at the break.
Djobet scored the first six points of the second half on a 3-pointer and a conventional three-point play, giving Omaha its biggest lead at that point, 53-38.
North Dakota (8-10, 2-0), which was coming off an overtime win over South Dakota State, scored on four straight possessions to cut Omaha's lead to 61-52.
North Dakota continued to whittle away at Omaha's lead as it was 74-69 with five minutes left. North Dakota had four possessions to get even closer, but Omaha came up with defensive stops before Osburn made a tough layup in transition with 3:05 left for a 76-69 lead, North Dakota never got closer after that.
Ja'Sean Glover added a strong all-around game for the Mavs with 10 points, six rebounds and five assists off the bench.
Omaha completes a three-game homestand against North Dakota State at 1 p.m. Saturday. NDSU is 3-0 in Summit play as it won 97-73 at Kansas City on Thursday.
