Weber State was counting on that much in Tuesday night's BSC tournament semifinal at the Rose Garden, but NAU dusted off the old gun sights and punched the Wildcats out 75-70.

It was the third straight NAU victory over the Wildcats this season, and ends Weber State's season at 16-14. The Lumberjacks, 21-10, move on to tonight's championship final.

The Wildcats were willing to concede the occasional three-point shot to the Lumberjacks, who without their usual arsenal of snipers haven't been as effective this year as they normally are.

But NAU hit 11 of 15 three-pointers, including two clutch bombs in the last 4:38 that finally put the Wildcats away. The Lumberjacks have been consistently under 40 percent from beyond the line all year.

"Some of their guys made shots," Weber State coach Randy Rahe said, "who haven't made a lot of threes this year."

Nate Geiser was one of them. The Jacks guard made three of four long ones, including an NBA-range shot with 4:38 left that tied the game at 64-64; that's sort expectable Ð he leads NAU in volume this year.

But Nick Larson? The 6 feet, 8-inch sophomore forward had shot only 25 all season going into Tuesday night, and made only six.

So the Wildcats let him shoot the big ball three times. And he hit all three.

"You have to give them credit," Wildcat guard Brody Van Brocklin said. "They hit the shots when they had to, and they got the calls they needed."

The three-pointers and 16 second-half points in the low post by Kyle Landry spoiled a good effort by the Wildcats that had them within range of a win until the last eight seconds.

Daviin Davis carried Weber State through the first half with 14 points that kept the Wildcats within two at the break. The Lumberjacks ran out to an eight-point lead early in the second half, but WSU snapped back to make it a game.

They even got a 64-61 lead on Van Brocklin's layup with 4:55 left, but Geiser erased that on the next possession.

And if the three-pointers kept the Lumberjacks in the game, Landry won it for them with three key hoops in the low post in the last 3:49.

The Wildcats had a problem there. Steve Panos and Trevor Morris, assigned to contain Landry down low, had four fouls in the late running (both would foul out). Van Brocklin, Dezmon Harris and Kellen McCoy cheated back to help, but that left some Lumberjacks open beyond the three-point line.

The book on this year's Lumberjacks said that wasn't such a bad thing. The book was wrong.

Storylines

* IN BRIEF: Weber State conceded three-point shots to some Northern Arizona shooters who haven't hit many of them this year, and it cost the Wildcats in the Big Sky Conference semifinals.

* KEY MOMENT: The Wildcats were within 71-68 when they lost track of Kyle Landry, who hit an all-alone layup to put Northern Arizona up by five points with 1:16 left in the game.

* KEY STAT: Northern Arizona hit 11 of 15 three-pointers.

No. Arizona

Today, 7 p.m, ESPN2