Northwest Missouri State men's basketball opened the 2017-18 season with an exhibition game against No. 1 Duke in the historic Cameron Indoor Stadium Friday night.
The Bearcats battled hard, and held a lead briefly, but ulitmately fell 93-60 to Mike Krzyzewski and the Blue Devils.
Northwest struggled to shoot the ball, going just 22-70 from the field, while Duke shot a stellar 60.6% throughout the game.
Redshirt freshman Ryan Hawkins led the 'Cats in scoring with 14 points on 5-7 shooting, he also hit his first three three-point attempts of the game.
Newcomer Joey Witthus added 12 points, all of which coming from beyond the three-point arc.
Chris-Ebou Ndow hit a three-pointer less than two minutes into the game to give Northwest a 3-1 lead, and hit a jumper less than a minute later to tie it up at 5-5 before Duke went on a 9-0 run as they began to pull away. Ndow finished with 10 points.
The Bearcats open regular season play on November 10 against Upper Iowa in the Hillyard Tip Off Classic from St. Joseph. Game time is set for 1pm. Pregame on the Bearcat Radio Network will begin at 12:40pm.