When Northern Colorado defeated Idaho State in Greeley, Colo., in early February, the Bears did so without facing Amorrow Morgan.

The Bengals' leading scorer missed that game to be in Memphis with his family after learning that his late father was in the hospital and in critical condition.

On Saturday, he was back in action with Idaho State, and UNC coach Tad Boyle said the Bengals were definitely a better team with the junior guard than without him.

Even though Northern Colorado held Morgan to just nine points, he made five key free throws and played for a full 40 minutes.

But in a weird way, Boyle said he thought Idaho State grew from being without him for a game.

"I do think him missing the game at our place may have helped them in the long run," he said. "(Chron) Tatum really stepped up and (Austin) Kilpatrick got back in the flow of things. He scored 14 points. They might have gained confidence out of that loss, if that makes sense."

Before the game, O'Brien said that loss at Northern Colorado was a turnaround for the Bengals because, even though they lost, they scored 74 points and picked up their offensive output considerably.

Foul trouble

It didn't seem to matter what big man O'Brien threw into the lineup, they all picked up fouls.

Most notable of the bunch was starting senior center Lucas Steijn. The Holland native picked up two early fouls and was in and out of the game the rest of the way. In limited action, he scored just four points and grabbed three rebounds.

O'Brien went to junior center Deividas Busma off the bench, but he picked up fouls, too, and that left him with junior forwards Chron Tatum and Felix Caspari. Even they combined for four fouls.

A step forward

Simply by qualifying for the Big Sky tournament, Northern Colorado made history.

For the first time in program history, the Bears advanced to postseason play in the Big Sky. After going 14-18 overall and 8-9 in conference play, Boyle said that was nice. Just not as nice as he wanted.

"It's a step forward," he said. "It's hard to look at it that way now. I think our guys had the mindset coming into this tournament that we weren't just happy to be here. We wanted to make some noise and we were capable of doing that."