The Alma College men's basketball team resumed play Sunday night after a lenghty holiday break with a game at St. Norbert College in the first game of the Nicolet National Bank Holiday Tournament. The Scots suffered through a tough second half en route to dropping a 103-69 decision to the Green Knights.

With the defeat, Alma is now 1-9 on the season, while St. Norbert improved to 7-1 for 2013-14. The Scots will now play Buena Vista University (IA) on Monday at 6:00 p.m. (EST).

"The final score did not indicate how well and how hard we played," said Alma Head Coach Sam Hargraves. "St Norbert is an excellent team with size and strength that really gave us matchup problems all night. Offensively we were very good when we could get a shot. But, as has been the story too often this year, turnovers hurt us."

St. Norbert had an early 3-2 lead and was able to build a 15-10 advantage at the 15:33 mark of the first half before Alma made a nice little run of 14-4. That burst gave the Scots a 24-19 advantage with 12:28 remaining, and the visitors had their biggest lead of the frame when Fr. G Chase Fairchild (Rockford/Rockford) hit a three-pointer for a 27-21 lead at 10:58.

The Green Knights responded strongly however and went on a 14-0 run over the next three minutes to take a 35-27 lead at the 7:25 mark. The home team increased their advantage to 51-32 at 2:34 before Alma scored the final five points of the first half to cut the deficit to 51-37 at the break.

The Scots connected on nine three-pointers (on 13 attempts) in the first half, led by So. F DJ Beckman (Shelby/Shelby), who was four of four and finished the frame with 16 points. Fairchild hit three of four from beyond the arc and the Scots shot 54% as a team (14 of 26).

However, St. Norbert shot a blistering 65% (22 of 34) and had 26 bench points, led by F Andrew Schwoerer, who was seven of seven from the field, good for 14 total points.

Alma got outscored 52-32 in the final 20 minutes and never was really able to make a concerted run at the Green Knights. The Scots cut the margin to nine at 56-47 when Beckman hit a jumper with 17:17 left in the game, however, St. Norbert went on a 11-3 run for a 67-50 lead less than three minutes later.

The closest the Scots would come after that was at 72-60 when Sr. F Kyle Aho (Gwinn/Gwinn) hit a jumper at the 9:42 mark to make it a 72-60 game. But, the Green Knights scored the next 14 points for a 86-60 lead with 7:10 remaining and never looked back. The bench also got into the action from there and the home team was able to walk off the court with the commanding 103-69 victory.

Beckman had a career night with 29 points in a losing effort as he finished 11 of 14 from the field, including seven of eight from beyond the arc. Fairchild was next with 15 points (five of seven three-pointers) and as a team, Alma shot a respectable 52% (27 of 52) from the field, including 14 of 24 on three's.

St. Norbert finished shooting 61% (40 of 66) on the game and hit on 10 of 21 three-pointers. 16 players played and 12 scored for St. Norbert and the bench had 53 total points, including a team-best 25 from Schwoerer. The Green Knights outrebounded the visitors by a margin of 34-21 and the Scots had 19 turnovers to SNC's eight.