Box Score

FAIRBANKS, Alaska - Malcolm Griffin scored a career-high 39 points on 15-of-18 shooting, setting a new tournament record at the GCI Alaska Invitational and earning tournament MVP honors, but it wasn't enough as the Sunbirds fell 83-72 to a talented Alaska Fairbanks team playing on its home court.

"Malcolm is as good of a player as there is at this level," said head coach Chris Wright. "He was aggressive and extremely efficient tonight. As we head into PacWest play he's obviously going to be a huge factor in us contending for a conference title."

FPU played even with the host Nanooks (5-1) for much of the way before UAF distanced itself in the final five minutes to pull away. The Sunbirds led 21-12 at one point in the first half and were tied with the Nanooks with just over 10 minutes left.

"Ultimately we had too many breakdowns defensively," said Wright. "With it being our sixth game in nine days though I feel like our guys have grown a lot. It's never easy when you're breaking in 10 new players but we continue to get better. This stretch has shown us some things we do really well and it's also revealed some glaring weaknesses we can spend the next couple weeks correcting before we head into a very tough conference schedule."

Phil Jackson had nine rebounds and joined Griffin on the all-tournament team. Josh Mason chipped in with 11 points. No other Sunbird had more than seven. The Sunbirds fall to 5-3 with the loss.

Ronnie Baker had 29 points and Sergej Pucar added 25 for the Nanooks.

Griffin's previous career high was 30, which came last season in FPU's win over BYU Hawaii, a game in which Griffin nearly completed a quadruple-double.

The Sunbirds begin PacWest play on Dec. 7th when they take on defending conference champion Dixie State in Fresno at 4:30 pm. Fans can get in free by bringing a new toy as part of "Toys for Tots", sponsored by the FPU student-athlete advisory committee (SAAC), to provide toys for needy children at Christmas.

"Dixie has a lot of players back and they're really well coached," said Wright. "They already have wins over NCAA D1 UNLV and #2-ranked Seattle Pacific so it's not an ideal way to start the conference schedule, especially with 10 new guys. We've got to prepare quickly and be ready for a battle."